Stranger
by darienqmk
Summary: Iris Potter thrived in her ruined world. The fog and smoke hid her foul magic and nobody was left to witness her deeds. When she's thrown back in time to a world that has yet to see war, she'll have to relive the nightmares all over again - but this time, she's not going to let Voldemort off so easily.
1. Chapter 1

What prompted Iris Potter to leave?

Maybe it was…

Ruin.

* * *

_In the desolate landscape, a single lonely woman sat on the curb, smoking a fag._

_She couldn't have been that old. Worn, red hair reached down to about her shoulders. However, she'd shaved one side of her head in a style reminiscent of punk from before the War. Her ears, nose, were all adorned with a multitude of small gold rings and diamond studs, giving credibility to her choice of fashion._

_As far as the eye could see - which wasn't that far, by the way, not with all the fog - there was carnage. The smell of ozone, not a bad smell to those who liked it, mingled with the smell of charred asphalt. Most roads had blown-out automobiles shoved uncaringly to the side, if any. The place had been used as a battlefield, not once, but many times over. _

_The base of the brick-built mansion the young woman was sitting in front of, had a large hole blown out on the fourth floor. It was the type of damage that was most likely caused by Muggle explosives, probably an RPG fired off by government forces. But the plenty of little holes that surrounded it? That was more likely to be the result of magical conflict. Large enough to harm a person, but nowhere near the same explosive power as with the big hole._

_The asphalt was cracked and barely usable. Weeds grew from the cracks, but get too big and they'll be burned by the dark magic in the air. They remained all at ankle-height. The cracks weren't formed by the weeds themselves, that was ridiculous. Part of it came probably from the few earthquakes they'd had since the outbreak of the war. But mostly, the cracks were the result of heavy vehicles ignoring the weight limitations._

_Tanks, mostly._

_Even now Iris didn't really know what was so important in the neighborhood of Surrey to warrant the attention of the national guard, but then again, she didn't know a lot of things._

_She admitted that._

_When her fag turned into 80% ash, she threw the butt away but didn't bother to stomp on it. Why did she care? A fire spreads, but literally nobody will be injured. Nobody is here to be injured. By the way, according to Iris' personal experiences, the cigarettes causing wildfire thing is a complete lie. She's done it over a million times and it has only managed to catch fire once._

_Well, then again, she's not doing this in Australia or California. She's doing this in what used to be London. Now just a maze of concrete hedges and rusted steel obstacles. Iris turns around, but it's just a young scavenger digging through a trash bin. They make eye contact. When Iris doesn't make any threatening moves, the teen continues to rummage through the long-since fouled contents of the waste with his bare arms._

"_Hey," Iris calls. Her voice hasn't been used in a while, but it still retains a measure of its softness, its sweetness. Sounds like honey rolling over grit. "You got a fag?"_

"_How much?" The kid asks shortly. So the brat does actually have one._

_Iris frowns, checks her pockets. The pockets she's sown into her cloak is just as jumbled a mess as the neighborhood she's standing in; she didn't realize how many damn pockets she'd end up needing. The pockets are actually bags of holding she stole from a store early on in the War. The bags, lightened, and expanded, holds a lot of important things. She pulls out a couple of knuts. Copper is more important than gold or silver in this new world. Copper can do a buncha things._

"_Those real?" The kid asks, approaching warily. "Nevermind. They're magic, aren't they?"_

"_Yeah," Iris replies. It's common sense now that goblin currency can't be faked. _

"_I'll give ya a couple," the kid says, pulling out two cigarettes. One per knut. _

"_Cheers," Iris says, takes one, lights one. "You have the other one."_

"_Ya sure?"_

"_Yeah," Iris says with a crooked grin on her lips. She raises her index finger. The tip of her finger glows, and she presses it against the cigarette and it begins to burn. The kid is suddenly wary, all the while Iris blows out an impressive stream of smoke from her nostrils like the clouds created by airplanes back when they still used to fly over here. _

_Iris notices the kid's discomfort. She searches her pockets again and comes out triumphantly with a box of matches. The kid's sense of danger slowly fades away and he gratefully takes the box of matches. He lights his cigarette, blows out the match, and reverently places it back in the matchbox before handing it back to Iris. Any sort of tinder is valuable these days._

_The two sit there huffing contently for a few minutes. This is one of Iris' favorite spots. It's near the bank of the Thames, actually. From here she can see the tip of Big Ben. To her right, if she squints real hard, she can see the Tower of London - crown jewels not included. Right beside her, on the left, is the Imperial War Museum. _

_The exhibits haven't been stolen. Funnily enough, it's the one place that remains mostly untouched throughout this post-apocalyptic hellhole. It is a haven. A sanctuary. Most of the exhibits are fakes, or real and ruined. That, or so out of time that it would be useless even in this world. Mostly though, it might be Iris. Iris has taken to guarding the museum like it's her own home._

_Maybe it resonates with her, the fact that everything gets more violent and inhuman as time goes on._

"_Thanks for the match," the kid says, as his cigarette burns out. He sticks out a hand. "I'm Adam."_

_Iris stares at the kid's hand pointedly. The kid remembers he was just digging through sewage and wipes his palms on his faded jeans awkwardly. Iris chuckles. It's a surprisingly deep, dry sound. Iris stands up and begins to head into the museum. "I'm Iris."_

_The kid's eyes widen in recognition. That's the Devil. The Butcher. That's the woman who defends the War Museum as if it's something of value to her as if anyone actually has anything of value to them these days._

_The kid and Iris part ways. When Iris disappears into the Museum, the kid gets ambushed. Two thugs. Anyone can see the kid has nothing of value. Maybe they're not after anything the kid _has_. Maybe they're just hungry._

_The kid dies._

_Becomes another splash of paint on the massive, washed-out canvas that is London._

* * *

If Iris could have one guess, she'd had a wild fucking night filled with bootleg booze and drugs that resulted in her seeing rainbows and shitting hurricanes for the past hour and somehow, she'd finally ended up here. On a cold, stone floor.

Her first thought, as she opened her eyes and received a blurry transmission of her fingers scrabbling at the floor, was just how clean it was. Free of dust. Her fingers didn't leave any trail on the smooth stone, except for the soon-evaporating trail of moisture from her fingertips.

She shook her head to clear it; bad move. Her head erupted in a cacophony of throbbing pains. As if someone was doing was drum solo and her head was the bass drum. A repressed groan escaped her lips slightly as she forced herself onto her hands and knees. She raised her eyes, blinking, trying to recognize the shapes and colors.

One of them was a brightly color flash.

Iris immediately rolled to the side and onto her feet. Her entire body was screaming in agony, but things might soon become worse if she didn't move. That was obviously the case because as soon as she moved, more and more spellfire came her way. Iris flicked her wrist, and her Holly wand snapped into her palm. She was never more grateful for it as she raised a shield that managed to block the incoming spells like waves crashing against a bulwark.

As her eyes reoriented themselves, Iris finally began to recognize where she was. She was in the Death Room. Department of Mysteries, British Ministry of Magic. She allowed herself a quick glance to the spot where she'd woken up. She'd been spat out from the Veil of Death.

No wonder these dehumanized, brown-cloaked figures were panicking at her retaliation.

If she were an Unspeakable, personally she'd be more relieved at the newcomer's display of magic; she could have been something truly unknown. Hell, if she were a goblin wearing a cloak and using goblin-brand magic, that would serve as more reason for concern in the heat of battle. Iris, in a moment of surprising clarity, decided she shouldn't explode the heads of all the Unspeakables after him because that would lead to arrest.

How the hell had she managed to get to that connection so quickly?

It required a lot of brainpower, at least in Iris' opinion, for her brain to go from floor, to DoM; to government; to laws; to illegal murder. Especially when she'd been killing without a second thought for the past fifteen years.

_If they were even real_, a nagging voice said.

Now _that_ would be something that took up too much of her brainpower to think about. Maybe she'd ponder it, but not when she was under attack. Iris had a pretty decent memory. She thought she could escape this place with the knowledge of what the place had looked like back when she was still in school. Then again, the Unspeakables probably had to do extensive remodeling after that little affair.

One of the Unspeakables seemed shocked - as far as a brown dementor could express emotion - when Iris dragged him? Her? Into the way of incoming spellfire; they screamed as they were struck by a dozen different spells cast by their friends. Thankfully, one of them was the stunning spell, so they went down limply.

Iris continued to run through the building, not bothering with opening doors as she just sent blasting hexes at them. The Unspeakables weren't very fast. They probably didn't get much exercise down here, especially considering how dark it was. Was it really worth sacrificing workplace safety rules just to make the whole place look a little more ominous and spooky?

Wait, that was literally whole of Hogwarts.

Iris smirked as she waited for the elevator; she sent an overpowered _bombarda_ at the doorway. The masonry fell in a deafening crash and piled up nicely in between them and her. It would be possible to dig themselves out, but it was certainly going to take longer than however long Iris would have to wait for a damn elevator.

_Ding!_

Iris loaded herself onto the elevator and smiled at the outraged, frustrated voices from the other side of the barrier. The elevator began to rumble up and she watched as one authoritative voice quietened the others. A moment of silence, and a deafening _boom_. Iris stumbled and grunted as high-speed debris struck her leg. Her dragonhide armor held up well, but it was going to leave a nasty bruise.

Iris was surprised at the balls of the Unspeakable who did that. The elegant doors of the elevator were occasionally bent and mangled in places where debris struck it a little too hard. Speaking of which, Iris' leg hurt like fuck. She needed some rest, Goddamnit. It wasn't as if she was much peaky after somehow being transported out of the Veil.

She exited the elevator at the Atrium. A few people stared at her. True, her outfit might be a little ill-suited for the occasion. A dusty cloak, a rebellious hairstyle, and _trousers _on a _woman_; what kind of God's abomination was that? What kind of self-respecting woman would ever wear trousers?

...was probably what that lady in the red robe was thinking. Iris blew a raspberry at her. She sniffed and turned away. Prick.

"Stop her!"

Everyone was surprised at the fact that an Unspeakable was actually talking to them. Only a few dozen of them existed, after all, and they were rarely seen in uniform outside their designated floor. Then their gazes turned to who he was pointing at. Iris herself. She growled and pulled out her second wand, flicking it into her right hand.

"Get out of the way!"

There was something in Iris' voice, and her appearance, that made people want to forget her presence and go on about their business. As a result, despite the Unspeakable's attempts at socializing, Iris was able to weave through the public with minimal interference. A few tried to send a tripping hex or the sort here and there, but Iris would always banish it back to the caster and watch in amusement as they stumbled and sprawled on the floor.

"Freeze!"

Iris turned her head again towards goal, the exit, to find it blockaded by two figures dressed in the unmistakable red of the Auror force. Iris froze. Not because she cared about anything they had to say. But because what she was seeing…

Her heart rate, which might have been at its resting rate so far, climbed rapidly. Her pupils dilated, drinking in the impossible details. The steady hands holding twin wands shook slightly. The two Aurors, one male and another female, approached warily.

"Good," the man's rich, bass tones were clear even though they were murmured. "Lower your wands, please. We don't want to hurt you."

"We can help you, whatever your problem is," the woman added.

Usually, Iris would have clapped back with a dry comment. What the hell did she mean, that the Aurors could help them? The Aurors were nothing like the police; the police, if inclined to, could instead send you to rehabilitation, for example; the Aurors just captured you and made you sit there until you inevitably went to Azkaban. But that wasn't what was on her mind.

"Tonks?" Iris whispered, as if fearful speaking the name would shatter the pink-haired Auror into a million pieces and blow her away like dust in the wind.

"What?" The Auror blinked. "Do I know you?"

Iris' heart was beating so madly that she could hear her pulse reverberating in her skull, amplified like a car in a tunnel. She raised her wand shakily. "No. You're not real. You're not here…!"

"Hey, I don't know how you know me, but I'm definitely real," Tonks tried to reassure her, her eyes darting to her mentor Kingsley who wore a grave expression.

"Don't wear her face in front of me!" Iris screamed.

Tonks made a strangled noise as she and Kingsley dived in opposite directions to evade Iris' massively overpowered blasting curse. The crowd finally got the hint that maybe the Unspeakable's presence signaled something bad was going on because they screamed and began to flock to either the elevators or the floo connections. Tonks and Kingsley recovered in an expert roll, quite similar to the same one Iris performed downstairs, and shot several stunning hexes at her.

Iris dodged all of them. She created a shield with her Holly wand, immediately behind her, as she spun around and used her other wand to banish the approaching Unspeakable back in the direction he came from; his hood slipped off to reveal an expression of surprise and wonder as he sailed across the entire atrium.

Iris charged forward towards Tonks, killing intent fresh in her mind. Kingsley shouted something, snapping off well-executed immobilizing spells, but Iris blocked or dodged them all. Tonks was backing away, one step at a time, her fear plain on her face. Even through the terror, however, Tonks continued to fight back.

Iris sheathed her dual wands and tackled Tonks to the ground. Tonks grunted as she hit the floor, and she tried to cast a spell, but whatever she was planning to do was cut short as Iris socked her in the face. Tonks seemed stunned for a moment, her eyes glazed and her muscles relaxed, before she pushed through and tried to punch Iris back. Iris dodged by tilting her neck to one side and trapped Tonks' arm in the crook of her neck.

"You have a lot of nerve sullying my memories like this," Iris hissed.

Tonks swallowed and her hair paled in fear. Iris blinked. That was… that was undeniably a metamorphmagus trait. It couldn't be faked. Was there a glamour somewhere? Possibly wearing a charmed trinket? Was Kingsley real as well? Did they survive the war? Or maybe-

Tonks successfully punched Iris in the face this time.

Iris was caught so off-guard she didn't even try to dodge, stumbling back. Her mind was going through some thoughts that would not necessarily healthy for her during a fight, but seemed inevitable. Tonks… was real. Kingsley was real. As much as she could try to deny it, the facts remained facts. She'd come out of the Veil. Place… completely different; as far as she could remember, the Ministry was blown to kingdom come.

Where the hell was she?

_When_ the hell was she?

Iris was struck by a stunning spell, but the cloak wasn't just for show; it was made of carbon nanotube fiber woven through dragonhide and adorned (on the inside) with plenty of protective runes, making it probably the most durable cloak that had ever existed. The spell simply bounced off and hit some unlucky sod who was trying to get to the floo, making him drop to the ground.

"No," Iris whispered, shooting up to her feet. "You're… you're both real."

"Thanks," Tonks said sarcastically, her voice muffled due to her nose being clogged with blood.

"You're both real." Iris' eyes brimmed with tears, to their surprise. "...sorry about the nose."

"Right," Tonks said, clearly not expecting that.

Iris felt like she was going to faint. She was glad both Tonks and Kingsley were real, both were wonderful people and she was glad they were alive, somehow, but there was too much information to process. She had to get the hell out of here. She drew the spare wand, making the two Aurors flinch, but Iris paid them no heed. She instead headed for the broken-glass-and-masonry of the exit, limping slightly. She could hear the rush of footsteps, adrenaline thick in the air; Auror reinforcements were coming. If it took them a full minute to arrive even though they were in the same bloody building, no wonder they'd lost the War.

Iris held up the Elder Wand and promptly vanished all the rubble. She slipped her way through, limped out of the wards, and apparated away. She couldn't think of where to go, so she just picked the one place that she could feel familiar with after all these years.

* * *

The next Order meeting was strange, to say the least.

Albus sensed it was off as soon as Nymphadora entered the building. When she inevitably smacked her shin on the cursed umbrella stand, there were only a few quiet mutters of obscenities, and she went over to close off Mrs. Black's horrendous portrait without arguing back at her. Kingsley was much more composed, but his mask was a little too carefully constructed. Something was… unusual, even if it wasn't necessarily good or bad news.

Dumbledore could already guess what the topic was, of course. He'd heard from one of his many friends that somebody had supposedly fallen out of the Veil this morning. A rare occurrence, maybe happening once every eighty years. Goodness knew this one was slightly overdue - having been one hundred and thirty years in the making - but that wasn't the strange bit. The strange bit was that the stranger was somehow able to fight their way through the Unspeakables, the Aurors, and had now disappeared.

After calming down the inevitable fight between Severus and Sirius - he had half a mind to let the two men deck it out at this point - he turned to the two Aurors. "I think you two have something you want to say," he prompted.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Tonks, which ended up attracting more attention to her than before. Probably not her desired result, because she muttered something under her breath and shuffled her feet. Kingsley stared at his partner for a moment before speaking in his deep, warm tones.

"From what we know, someone escaped from the Unspeakables early this morning," Kingsley said. "While the Unspeakables are characteristically tight-lipped about it, we can figure that he fell out of the Veil, and resisted the Unspeakables' attempts to-"

"It was a girl," Tonks interrupted.

Kingsley looked at her. "Excuse me?" He asked, confused.

"You said, 'he'," Tonks replied. "The stranger was female. I confirmed it when we were fighting."

"Ah," Kingsley hummed. Albus watched him with rapt attention, as was the rest of the Order; interesting news these days too often came in the package of Voldemort and misery. "Well, this woman, she successfully escaped the Unspeakables and into the atrium. The Unspeakables seemed to be quite flustered because one of them yelled at us to intercept her."

"An Unspeakable, able to talk to other human beings?" Sirius murmured sarcastically to himself.

"Jane Doe froze when we told her to. We attempted to negotiate with her. However, as we learned, she froze not because she was following our command, but because she recognized Tonks," Kingsley said, gesturing with one hand before clasping them behind his back again. This surprised the Order, and Albus asked them to let Kingsley continue. "Thank you," Kingsley said, nodding in Albus' direction. "She, however, claimed that we were fake, likely implying we were imposters in polyjuice or glamours, and proceeded to attack us."

"And she managed to escape the two of you?" Molly said incredulously.

"I suspect if she truly wished she could have just as easily killed both of us," Kingsley said in a grave voice, resulting in outbursts of surprise and shock from the members. Albus pondered this. Tonks, while new, had graduated the Auror academy top of her class, and Kingsley was a reliable, seasoned and skilled veteran of the force. For Kingsley to describe her as being able to 'easily' kill the both of them meant this stranger was formidable indeed.

"What stopped her from doing so?" Albus asked, cutting off the various small debates occurring around the table.

"She witnessed Tonks' hair change white," Kingsley said, and Tonks blushed. White was when she was scared; Albus didn't blame her. "That seemed to confirm to her that Tonks' metamorphmagus abilities were real, and therefore Tonks was real. She also commented, by extension, that I was real."

"So she knew the two of you somehow," Albus mused.

It was then that Severus spoke up. "What was her style of combat?"

Kingsley frowned slightly. "She fought with dual wands."

Predictably, Severus snorted. "Only show-offs use two wands."

"True in most cases, but she was an expert at it," Kingsley said. "I didn't witness much of it, but I saw her put up a shield with one while attacking with the other."

"She could also use no wands," Tonks said sarcastically.

Albus' eyebrows rose. "Wandless magic?"

"Oh, no. She just punched me in the face," Tonks laughed bitterly, gesturing at her nose. It did seem to show signs of a recent mending, now that he looked closely. "She apologized, though, so no harm done."

"Apologized?"

Albus was perplexed. The stranger obviously knew the two of them, and the fact that she'd put off killing them meant that Tonks, Kingsley and the stranger - wherever she was from - were on friendly terms. The Veil was said to be a dimension to other worlds. Parallel worlds? Was this woman perhaps part of the Auror force?

"Yeah," Tonks said quietly.

Kingsley didn't seem to be inclined to say anything else either, so Albus didn't push him. He let the chatter dominate the room for a few minutes as he thought. Perhaps this was related to their War. There was prophecy already, after all, what was wrong with adding a few other mystic elements? If the figure was friendly with Tonks and Kingsley, he was confident the newcomer wouldn't be on Voldemort's side. But he needed to be certain. If they were in any way in an antagonistic relationship with Harry…

Dumbledore was his Headmaster, after all. It was his job to protect Harry.

* * *

Hey there, welcome to my newest story.

This was heavily inspired by _Circular Reasoning_ by Swimdraconian. I really enjoyed the mood of that story, even if the plot was a bit shaky in my opinion. The traumatized Harry was expertly written, and I wanted to be able to write like that, so this is the result. I know, since _Circular Reasoning_ has set the bat quite high, this kind of story might be a bit beyond the expertise of someone at my level of writing. But that's alright, any and all writing serves as practice.

For the same reason I think it'll take me longer to update this story than _Through the Veil_. Don't expect regular updates.

I hope you all enjoy reading.

Darien


	2. Chapter 2

Maybe it was loneliness.

* * *

_The redheaded young woman and the black-haired man sat on opposite sides of the campfire._

_Where once the black-haired man's eyes had twinkled with familiarity and pride and love, there was only now cold, dead neutrality. The young woman didn't need to hear him speak to understand what he was thinking. But he spoke anyway._

_"This is the last thing I'm going to do for you," he said. "You're not my goddaughter anymore."_

_"Really?" Iris quipped back, her tongue numb and cold as it was from the painful hours-long swim beforehand. "Shouldn't I be owed an extra twelve years? Y'know, because you weren't there?"_

_Sirius bristled, but didn't say anything. He knew he was going to lose this argument. And he was bracing himself for it._

_"Didn't you run away from your relatives?" Iris asked, already knowing the answer. "Because you hated them? Because your mother was a psychopathic bint and your father worshipped Social Darwinism like the Bible? Didn't you hate your entire family because they hated a select group of people for no real reason and tried to force you to partake in hurting them?"_

_"What's your point?" Sirius snarled._

_"My point is you had someone to go to, back then," Iris shrugged casually, trying to mask her shivering. "I didn't. I put up with the Dursleys for God knew how long without a guardian angel to keep me from being starved, beaten and occasionally raped." Sirius flinched at her matter-of-fact tone. "I didn't have anyone to go to. Because the people who should have been in my life were locked up in Azkaban after making the most idiotic decision possible."_

_"You seriously can't be blaming your psychopathic nature on me," Sirius growled, but the heat in it had disappeared._

_"Only part of it," Iris nodded. "The other part goes to Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, and Tom fucking Riddle." Iris' green eyes were dull, dark. "Forgive me if I got mad when every single one of you, whom I had just begun trusting, abandoned me again."_

_"You know we didn't keep from you because we wanted to," Sirius said. His face was unseen but his voice broke slightly._

_"Yes, you were just acting on orders. Funnily enough, that's what all of Hitler's Jew-exterminators said during their trials, too." Iris snorted. "I'm not going to compare you to a Nazi, obviously. That's just pathetic. But fucking hell, would it have killed you to go against Dumbledore's orders once? He's not even your Merlin-damned employer!"_

_Iris didn't notice she'd stood up. Iris didn't notice she was yelling down at a cowering Sirius. She had no doubt Sirius could beat the shit out of her if she tried anything. But Iris had Sirius' guilt and shame on her side. She was reminded, the way they were arranged, of Vernon yelling at her as a child. Iris, cowering, terrified._

_Iris sat back down._

_"If it's any consolation," Iris spoke. "You did a pretty good job as a cool godfather even if you missed out on the first few years."_

_"Don't praise me," Sirius said quietly. "I don't want to be praised by the likes of you."_

_"Fuck you."_

_Sirius didn't respond._

_After that, all conversation ceased. Iris realized just how exhausted she was. Her muscles had long ago given up on screaming in pain and had simply drifted to unconsciousness. She may or may not have said - she only vaguely remembered - three words that undoutedly cut through Sirius' heart like a red-hot cauterizing knife._

_"I love you."_

_Then Iris closed her eyes. She didn't have any dreams. Too tired for that. When she woke up, she found that her Azkaban prison robes were transformed into warmer, more humane robes, that she was under a thick woolen blanket, the fire had been put out, and Sirius was long gone._

_Iris wondered if she'd ever see Sirius again._

_She stared into the distance. The sky was blue, but the blue gave way to desolate gray that she'd escaped from last night. Even though she was now far away from the island of Azkaban, she still felt dead and empty inside._

* * *

The glamour charm was definitely a dream. Iris had lost count of how often it had come in handy. She'd used it to change the appearance of her clothes into something that seemed to fit in more with the people around her, the color and length of her hair.

She was sitting in front of a Spitfire, hanging from the ceiling with wires. She liked the aeroplanes. There was something to be romanticized about the great open sky and flying in a delicately made machine. The crystallization of British stiff-upper-lip, unwavering determination, and craftsmanship.

In the sky, perhaps one could almost forget they were nothing more than another murderer.

Another dog of war.

Iris sighed, rubbing her tired eyes. It was strange to see her sanctuary being defiled - she shook her head, forcing herself to stop. This wasn't her sanctuary anymore. The Muggles were out and about. The war hadn't happened yet. She'd checked the newspaper; the date was July 30th, 1995. About two years since the beginning of the endless conflict.

But, God. She'd fucked up that scene, hadn't she? Instead of keeping her cool as she should have, she'd allowed her repressed memories and emotions to take control. A mistake like that against anyone else, a dark wizard, would have killed her. Mistakes like that were never to happen again. There was no guarantee she'd walk away, alive, next time.

An old man sat down next to her, on the soft leather long-chair. He gazed up at the Spitfire.

"Don't see many of you young'uns with an interest in history these days," he said.

Iris turned her eyes onto him. He was tall, but his back crooked, he didn't seem it. He was gaunt and seemed labored. Probably a soldier of that war, then. Iris returned her gaze back to the aircraft. A silence stretched between the two of them, until Iris finally spoke.

"We're all dragged into history kicking and screaming," she said.

"True," the old man agreed. "I used to be a pilot, you know. 319th Squadron. I flew a Spitfire, like that one. An earlier model, though."

Another old soldier clinging desperately onto their past achievements as their relevance was washed away by nuclear power and the Internet. Brilliant. But Iris needed practice responding politely to unsolicited attention instead of just blowing up peoples' heads like they were eggs.

"319th?" She said. "Are you Polish, then?"

"I am," the old man agreed. His story took a turn. "I wish I'd never had to step foot in that plane."

"Why's that?"

"Because in the events that led to me flying that aircraft, my family was robbed, my brothers executed, my father and mother shipped off in a train like common cattle," the old man said. His tone was completely neutral. "Only my sister and I got the visas to come here. Only we survived. I only flew out of vengeance."

Iris remained quiet for a very long time.

"You're not what I expected," Iris finally allowed.

"What did you expect?"

"I expected an old English man trying his best to relive his glories and remain relevant in the minds of the younglings," Iris said, and the old man snorted beside him. Iris was starting to like the bastard.

"There is no glory in war, as much as we pretend there is," he said. "All that's left are men dead on the outside, and men dead on the inside. Anyone who remains proud of their military history is a fool."

"Did you murder people?"

"I did. I have a three-times ace," the Polish man smiled darkly. "Best in my squadron. Got the shiniest badges and medals. I've half a mind to throw it away, but my grandkids think they're cool."

The last part was spoken with such sarcasm and spite that Iris actually laughed. A sound she didn't quite remember how to reproduce, but she assumed she did alright. "Would you believe me if I said I was a killer, too?" Iris asked.

"You're a bit young," the old man replied. He didn't seem fazed in the slightest.

"I can look young if I want," Iris said. She removed a few of her glamours, until some of her facial scarring could be seen, and turned to the old man. He didn't react, really. Just nodded, took it in stride. Iris liked this old boy.

"What war?" He asked bluntly.

"You wouldn't know of it," Iris replied softly. "I'm from far away."

"A regional conflict, then?"

"Suppose you could say that. It was regional when it began, but I… left," Iris said. The man nodded. "I don't know how to tell my story. I don't think I started fighting because of revenge. I was the wonder weapon, you could say. I fought because, well, that's what I had to do."

The old man remained silent. "Do you regret your kills?"

"No," Iris replied honestly. "I felt nothing. Perhaps I might have felt something if I ever gave them the time to beg me for their lives."

"I've met a few like you," the Polish man said, still unfazed. "Soldiers who were really just machines wrapped in flesh. They weren't really cruel, just damned efficient at the job. Didn't torture anybody, didn't rape a woman, just went around killing."

"And what happened to them after the war?"

"Depends," the man shrugged. "Some of them stayed in the military. Those ones turned out alright. The others shot themselves in the head. Wasn't depressed, or anything. Just didn't care anymore."

A mother shot a glare at the old man as she dragged her child away; suicide was not the type of conversation one had in a public place. Too bad for her that neither seemed to give a fuck. The old man had lived through that sort of stuff. His nerves were numbed when it came to talking about it.

"Reckon I'll shoot myself?"

"Maybe."

"You know, they gave me a few shiny medals, too," Iris smiled. "One of them was a French Knighthood. Another one was the Order of Merlin, First Class. For my 'valiance and strength in the face of terror'."

"Order of Merlin?" He snorted. "Careful, might sound a bit pompous there."

Iris smirked. "If there's one thing I've never been, it's modest."

The old man proceeded to buy Iris lunch. As with all food in public places, it was grossly overpriced and slightly greasier than anyone would have liked. Iris didn't complain as she ate her fish and chips. She hadn't had food like this in fifteen fucking years.

"You really like it, don't you?" the man said, amused.

"Haven't had proper food like this in a damn long time," Iris said softly. The old man's eyes flashed briefly with sympathy.

"Do you want something else?"

Iris looked up. "Can you get me a Coke? I haven't had one of those in ages either."

The old man did and Iris thanked him. Weird how a total stranger was being more accommodating to her than the magical government. She sipped her soda and rolled it around in her mouth. The old man's lips quirked. "Well?"

"It's too sweet," Iris said. "I guess things are better in hindsight."

The old man snorted. "I know," he said.

"Thanks for buying me food. I'm sorry I can't pay you back." And it was true. She didn't have any Muggle money on her.

"Better than spoiling my grandkids," he grumbled. "God knows my wife does that enough already."

Iris smirked. "What ridiculous nickname did they give you to make you hate them so much?"

"They didn't," he said simply. "They're just spoiled. My daughter married a rich man, plenty of properties around London. Kids haven't known real struggle their entire lives. I'd say that's not their fault, but it gets fucking annoying when they belittle your own struggles as a result."

Iris nodded. "I suppose I'll be going through that phase soon."

"Oh, you'll have fun. Nobody knows just how many times I've thought about killing myself," he said quietly. "My wife found me once in the shower bleeding out and unconscious. She didn't realize I was bleeding here," he brushed his finger over his wrist, "and here." Other wrist. "Just that I was unconscious and bleeding. The paramedics noticed, obviously, but didn't tell her. If they did, she forgot. Frankly that's not a surprise considering how forgetful she is."

Iris remained silent. She too knew a lot of people who killed themselves after the war. Voldemort was gone. But so was everything else. Everything was gone, dead, ruined. A world that felt so empty that it could have been a hologram of the real world.

"I like you, kid. You're honest. I can be honest with you. Not an arse-kisser like my son-in-law and grandkids. You know what you are, and I know what I am."

Did she really? Did she really know who she was?

"God knows I come here often enough. I'm going to have to go home around now. My daughter is bringing her kids over today."

"See you around, then."

"I'll see you, kid."

Iris watched the old man leave the exhibit, following his limping figure with her eyes until he rounded a corner. She suspected that he truly enjoyed talking shit about his memories. It helped him stay sane, she supposed. Sometimes, it was better to share the burden instead of trapping oneself in a cage of one's memories with one's most dreaded monsters.

But not her. Oh, not her. Her monsters would rip everyone else apart.

* * *

Tonks found her.

Judging by the magical residue left by the escapee, Magical Forensics had estimated that the woman had not traveled more than ten miles in diameter. Aurors were made to fan out and search for the mystery woman. Tonks had felt a hint of dark magic radiating from the Imperial War Museum, so she entered it. Followed the… stink, if you will. The metallic tang of ozone.

The woman in question was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and heeled boots. Her hair was long, arrow-straight and jet black. Her face was unblemished, but Tonks knew it was her. Her facial structure was identical to the woman that had attacked her. See, not many people noticed these sort of things, and Tonks herself was only familiar with the process of identifying facial structures because she was a metamorphmagus.

She was just watching the - airplane? She sat and stared. Tonks observed for half an hour, but she didn't move. Earlier, she'd said goodbye to an old man, and judging from their attitude with each other, they were complete strangers who'd sat down together to have a chat. After that, nobody spoke to her.

She was truly alone in this world.

Tonks warily watched, making sure the woman didn't move, as she moved to the restroom. Once inside, checking it was empty of people, she lengthened her hair, changed it to blonde. Her eyes became blue and her jaw narrower, nose sharper. Only problem was her clothes - she couldn't change her clothes. She could transfigure it, she supposed. Better chance of that than with a glamour.

"Kingsley," she whispered into the tiny communication mirror attached to her wrist, disguised as a bracelet. "I've located the target. I'm going after her. Cover the exit for me."

"Understood," Kingsley responded in a tinny voice.

She transfigured her glamoured Auror uniform into a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. Unoriginal, she knew. But the thick fabric of the Auror robes, the long sleeves, made it difficult to shrink into something as thin as a t-shirt. There was also the hopeful bonus of making the mystery woman identify with Tonks through their mutual attire.

Tonks left the bathroom and peeked around the corner again. The target remained unmoving. She exhaled. Good. She steeled herself and prepared to approach her. Dumbledore had reassured her that, based on her previous reaction to Tonks, she was unlikely to hurt her - but Dumbledore had an optimistic streak a mile wide. She was terrified, if she was being honest. That woman could kill her as easily as Molly did the dishes.

Tonks approached the raven-haired figure with her hands stuck in pockets. She cringed again as she realized, if not for the color, just how similar their outfits were. No turning back now, though. She'd surely get suspicious if she tried. She took a deep breath and sat down next to the woman.

The woman didn't react.

Tonks looked up at the exhibit, the Spit-Spitfire? She had to squint to read the text underneath. She stared at the metal plates, the propellers, the glass bubble of the cockpit. It looked very pretty, in the same way a sleek broom was pretty, Tonks could agree on that. But she didn't see just what was so appealing about this particular exhibit to warrant so much attention from the woman.

"I'm guessing this is your favorite exhibit," Tonks said jokingly.

The woman turned her head and looked at Tonks, before returning her gaze to the Spitfire. Tonks felt an involuntary shiver run across her spine as they locked eyes again. "I don't know why I'm so popular today," she commented casually. Tonks swallowed. Had she been identified?

The woman stood up. "Nice seeing you again Tonks, but I don't think I'm ready to face you again right now."

Tonks also stood up, her hand itching for her wand. They remained in a stand-off for a few brief, tense moments. Tonks' eyes flickered between the woman's unmoving hands, her posture. She was laid-back and didn't seem as tense as she was. Finally, her eyes. Her cold, green eyes, beautiful like sheets of ice in the arctic yet just as painfully cold.

That was her mistake.

"_Legilimens_," she murmured.

Tonks' breath hitched as the soft-spoken word, too soft to be picked up by Kingsley's communication mirror, sucked her back inside her mindscape. She was in Hogwarts. That was where her mind was most familiar with, the closest to a defensive position she ever knew.

In one's mind, one only became a conscious representation of themselves. Those skilled in Occlumency could construct themselves with great detail and accuracy - Snape could built an image of himself with a fairly good imitation of his real-world black cloak, hair, brows and frown - while novices may appear to their mind's eye as nothing more than a melted, deformed mannequin of a similar height and build. Tonks was in-between; she could see distinctly pink hair in a mirror in one corridor, a red robes that vaguely reminded her of the Auror uniform.

The intruder was a carbon copy of the real thing.

The intruder, whoever this was, was so damn good and practiced at Legilimency and Occlumency that they barely needed effort to represent themselves as the demonic red-haired, green-eyed woman that she was. But this was the first time Tonks saw her properly, and this also increased her shock. What little of the woman wasn't clothed was covered in scars, ugly ones. A large, serrated scar on her cheek which suggested a lot of tissue damage; a thin one across her eye (and subsequently tearing her eyelid, making her look wide-eyed in just her right eye); what looked like claw-marks on her left lower jaw, and a single, ugly and prominent scar ringed her throat, one that Tonks felt like she knew what it was caused by but didn't want to guess.

The stone statues and metal suits of armor that decorated Hogwarts at every corner jumped to life and moved into position to intercept the woman. Her mental defenses were quite well-structured; Hogwarts was full of traps even to those familiar with them. But the woman marched up to the stone phalanx and tossed them aside with her formidable mental power like they were gnats. Tonks felt the castle crumble around her with her panic and this situation was only barely improved when she forced herself to shut down her emotions and remain calm.

The woman headed in the direction towards what was unmistakeably Hogwarts libraries, ignoring the mental manifestation of Tonks.

The memory archive.

Tonks, with an unheard yell, chased after the woman. Tonks ran after her and prepared to strike with her fists, but she was soundly rebuffed as if running right into a mattress made of air. She tried again, to the same result; the woman walked quickly, but unhurriedly, reaching the library. Tonks watched in horror as she fired off a salvo of spells only for them to fizzle out halfway to their target. This woman's Legilimency was simply powerful enough to crush her Occlumentic defenses under her feet.

She casually walked through the shelves, Tonks struggling all the way, but making no difference to her. She paused at one shelf, examining the titles on the spines of the volumes. She removed a tome, still relatively thin, but covered in wisps of darkness.

"No!" Tonks screamed. For the first time since the intrusion, the woman looked at her. Then, from her fingertips, a red light shot at her; Tonks fell back into darkness.

* * *

"Tonks."

It was so damned comfortable. Did her mother clean the sheets? It was possible, because no matter how many different fabric softeners Tonks bought from the store, it was never the same as when Andromeda Tonks cleaned her sheets. Since Ted Tonks was a Muggleborn and the couple lived in a Muggle neighborhood, mum definitely used a washing machine instead of hand-washing (or wand-washing?) like many magical households.

"Tonks."

Tonks groaned and rolled over to the other side. It sounded like dad telling her to wake up - well guess what, she was a grown woman and wasn't going to take orders anymore! At least, not when her mother's wonderful sheets were on the line!

"Tonks!"

She was splashed with cold water on her face. She stammered and sat up, clawing at her face, flicking the water out of her eyes. Kingsley sat before her with grim satisfaction, and she spluttered. "What the hell was that for?"

"You were knocked out," Kingsley replied succinctly, and Tonks looked around. She was sitting on the floor, well-polished and clean, and judging by the objects littered around her she was in some sort museum. She tried to remember this place.

"What happened?"

"You approached our target and made small conversation. She stood up to leave, and you tried to stop her. You got into a staring contest, and then you slumped to the floor. I was, despite myself, impressed. The woman must have cast a silent, wandless stunning spell and notice-me-not charm."

"What woman?"

"The woman we were chasing," Kingsley said with his infinite patience. "She took on a glamour and came here, so you followed her in disguise. She must have seen through the glamour concealing your Auror robes."

"King, I'm sorry about all this, but I'm really confused… who exactly were we chasing?"

Kingsley chewed on the side of his cheek, peering into his partner's eyes for possible signs of a concussion. "Do you know the date?" Kingsley asked.

"July 13th, 1995," Tonks said dutifully, realizing what Kingsley was doing and knowing he wouldn't be satisfied by any reassurance she made; she'd been concussed before.

"And your full name?"

"...dora Bella Tonks," She mumbled, her voice at a minimum. Kingsley rolled his eyes.

"Do you know what you had for breakfast today?"

"We didn't. We got called in for emergency backup today, though they didn't give a reason why."

Kingsley hummed. "You're not concussed, it seems. But you've apparently sustained some sort of memory loss. Could the target have performed an obliviation? But that doesn't seem likely; unconsciousness is not one of its symptoms, and obliviation always requires a wand, not as a matter of power but of control, if it is to be used without turning someone's brains to mush."

"Tell me about the target, Kingsley," Tonks said firmly. His brows furrowed in worry.

"You truly don't remember anything about the woman?" Kingsley said. "Now, this isn't official information; Unspeakables are keeping it unspeakable, as usual. One person emerged form the Veil this morning, but before they could be restrained, they overpowered the Unspeakables and escaped. We saw them, too, this morning, and we - that's to say, you-" Kingsley smirked and Tonks rolled her eyes, "-were overpowered. They escaped from the Ministry simply by leaving through the front entrance and apparating away, although only after the impressive feat of vanishing the rubble that blocked the entryway."

"That does sound like trouble," Tonks agreed slowly. "What did they look like?"

"Sources report that…" Kingsley hesitated. "When we fought, they appeared to be…"

Tonks stared hard at her partner. Something was definitely wrong. Kingsley murmured something to himself and shook his head. When he looked up at Tonks, his face was calm and neutral, as always, but his eyes betrayed a slight fear. "I don't remember, Tonks."

"Did you get obliviated, too?"

"I didn't. I watched the two of you from a distance. I watched you confront each other. I watched the target leave after you lost consciousness. I watched them leave the building while hiding behind that Centurion tank." Kingsley pointed to the tank in question. "I didn't get obliviated, because I remember every other detail. The only thing missing is the identity of that creature."

"While I hate to make Dumbledore do all the thinking, I really think we need to report to Dumbledore," Tonks said gravely.

* * *

Albus was being served lunch by Molly when he was interrupted by twin cracks of apparition, coming from outside. That would probably be a couple of Aurors going on the mysterious manhunt. Or perhaps womanhunt. It didn't matter.

Albus Dumbledore was not known as one of the greatest minds in modern history for nothing. His razor-sharp intellect and near-eidetic memory were powerful tools to behold, tools that Tom Riddle feared - even if the pedestrian wizard believed Albus' true source of power was his magic. That was why, at precisely 11:32 AM that day, he realized something was very curiously wrong.

It wasn't as if the world had turned upside down; no, it was not as serious as that. Indeed, what happened probably would only affect Unspeakables and Aurors, and perhaps his own curiosity. He felt the shock, his mind suddenly with a gap, and the remainder of it trying to rediscover what had once been there. It was in vain. Whatever information had been plucked from his mind was irrecoverable, and the only knowledge he had left of that event was that it was taken from him.

It was about fifteen minutes since that Tonks and Kingsley burst into the room, the former nervous and the latter grim. "My apologies for interrupting your meal, Albus," Kingsley apologized, like the true gentleman that he always was. "But I believe something very important has come to our attention, and we would like your counsel."

"You've lost some of your memories," Albus said, and briefly enjoyed the shocked look on Tonks' face. No doubt they thought him all-knowing, at this point. "It's no surprise, dear girl. After all, all but three hours ago I also knew the identity of the one who fell through the Veil. I felt the tremor of magic also. My mind is now missing a piece of its information, and trying hard to recover it. Not that it helps."

"What happened to us?" Tonks asked.

Albus scanned Tonks' mind with a bit of passive Legilimency. She was confused, very confused indeed, by her supposedly recent event of memory loss. "Is something wrong with your memory? Moreso than myself or Kingsley, I mean?"

"While I am mostly unaffected save for the identity of the stranger," Kingsley explained, "Tonks was unconscious after an encounter with the target and when she woke up, she seems to be missing all memory of the confrontation at the Ministry as well as her recent confrontation at the Imperial War Museum."

"Obliviation?"

"I do not think so. If it were wandless, then it would have destroyed her mind from the lack of control and grace. I also do not think Tonks has been concussed."

"Is there some sort of Muggle technology that wipes minds?" Tonks murmured.

"Only in fiction, my dear," Albus replied, thinking. There was only one other explanation for memory loss. "It is possible that your target is a very experienced _legilimens_. Then it would be possible to perform controlled destruction of your memories."

Kingsley flinched. "Tonks had eye contact with the target before losing consciousness."

Tonks' jaw was hanging slightly open as Albus nodded. "That would make plenty of sense. I believe you have had your mind invaded, Nymphadora. Especially since Kingsley mentioned the act was wandless."

Tonks paled. "Does that mean they've seen all of my memories?"

"Unlikely," Kingsley replied. "They were only around for a few seconds after you lost consciousness."

"Enough time to perhaps look up one detail in your collective memory," Albus agreed. "It would take months to view all of your memories, dear. Years, if you were to view my memory."

"Right," Tonks breathed, though she didn't seem reassured by that much. "So how did they do it? This memory loss thing that happened to you guys?"

"The most likely explanation is the Fidelius Charm," Albus said. Kingsley and Tonks' facial expressions changed immediately to those of worry; they'd watched him perform the charm that hid this house, after all, and that had taken so much drain out of him that in his old age, he was hospitalized by Poppy for three days. Nobody else in the Order could claim to be able to provide that much magical power without risking their life. That meant whoever they were dealing with, was exceptionally powerful.

"They hid their identity under the Fidelius?" Tonks said darkly. "We'll never find them now."

"Not if we're thinking in the context of their identity, no," Albus agreed, and he explained for the two Aurors. "It is entirely possible that you end up sitting next to the person in question on the Hogwarts Express and the two of you make conversation. You would be able to converse with them, remember their facial features and their name, but you would never be able to connect them to the person that crossed the Veil."

"Who could this Veil-crosser possibly have created a trusted contact in such a short period of time?" Kingsley asked.

"I doubted they're trusted," Albus sighed. "With the case of the Potters, Sirius turned down the position because he was too obvious. I believe, if this individual is intelligent enough to be able to perform the Fidelius from memory, they would have chosen a complete stranger, even a Muggle, used them as a secret-keeper, and obliviated them afterward."

Kingsley nodded gravely. "The search will be fruitless."

"Utterly," Albus said.

* * *

Hello all,

I apologize to those of you who have read and enjoyed the two chapters I had up before I deleted them. I read them over a few hours earlier and realized just how out of line they were with what I hoped to achieve. It looked like a shitty Tonks-involved romance story than the tale of a misplaced vigilante. As much as I like Tonks and shipping Tonks, I don't want romance to be central, or even necessary, to the story. So, I decided I would re-do the second and third chapters entirely to approach the direction I want to go on. The carefree yet paranoid, the friendly yet violent, and arrogant yet self-pitying war veteran is what I hoped to achieve. What I was writing didn't fit that. I hope that I haven't caused too much trouble for all of you by doing this, and I hope that you enjoy the shift just as much or more as the old perspective.

Darien


	3. Chapter 3

Maybe it was misery.

* * *

"_It's going to be okay."_

_That was what Hermione had said, over and over. Every single fucking time she said that, Iris wanted to murder some unfortunate bastard who happened to be standing nearby. It wasn't gonna be okay. That was a complete fucking lie and both of them knew it. Nothing was gonna be okay and everything was damned to hell._

_Hermione's face was so peaceful, so serene, every time those words were spoken, that at one point Iris even suspected she believed it._

_Of course, it doesn't matter what you believe. Life fucks you over anyway._

_Hermione knelt on the street in a line with five other Muggleborns. They were supposedly the leaders of the Muggleborn resistance movement. Bullshit. Hermione might have been an outspoken critic of the Voldemort-ruled government, but there was no Muggleborn rebellion. That shit was a lie used to justify the war on those of impure blood. Most Muggleborns had managed to flee the country before everything went down the shitter. But not Hermione._

_Not know-it-all Hermione. Not righteous-saint Hermione. Not beautiful-precious Hermione. _

_Please, not her._

_Iris' fists were clenched so hard that the skin of her entire hand was the color of spoiled milk and her fingernails, though cut short, caused her to bleed from her palms. Why the fuck shouldn't she go out there and murder those cunts now? Fucking cowards, those executioners wearing masks, wearing masks so that Iris herself couldn't identify them and murder their fucking wives and kids and their fucking pet goldfish-_

"_Calm down," a low, greasy voice whispered in her ear._

_Iris jerked her head around and her eyes settled on a piggy face, multiple chins covered in stubble and whatever hair left on his head looking like they were going to commit suicide. But if anyone had noticed his eyes - _oh God his eyes _\- they might have recognized him._

_Sullivan Gardner. _

_Oh, he wasn't exactly famous. He was kept hush-hush about it all. The big, dirty secret of the Ministry of Magic Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It pissed him off to no end that he had to flash his Level Ten Security Clearance badge to any fucker less important than Amelia Bones or Barty Crouch. The head of the Special Operations Unit._

_The government sector so secret, Voldemort had never found out about._

_But Voldemort, in all his hissing glory, would find out about the secret government subdivision that had been piking the heads of senior Death Eaters and left them there surrounding the Ministry building soon enough if he didn't lay his fucking hands off Hermione-_

"_Are you listening?"_

_A meaty hand gripped Iris' chin and forcibly turned her head to stare back into Gardner's eyes. He glared at him. "Dumb bitch. Look at yourself. About to take on the Dark Lord and ten of his generals while causing mass collateral casualties, are ya? Sit tight like the good little girl you're supposed to be and watch your friends get murdered."_

_Strangely enough, that helped._

_Iris watched Hermione._

_Her expression didn't change once when Voldemort spoke to her. Always so serene. Always so beautiful._

"_Any last words, Hermione Granger?" Voldemort asked passively. It was almost as if he was genuinely interested in what she had to say. _

_Hermione raised her head. Though her words were quiet, they were heard by everyone. _

"_War is peace.  
Freedom is slavery.  
Ignorance is strength."_

_Several heartbeats after that, Hermione toppled silently to the ground. She'd gone painlessly. That was more than could be said for the other less fortunate fuckers Iris knew._

_That didn't stop Iris from hurting, though._

* * *

Iris looked around Tonks' flat. It was little better than a studio apartment, having come with only a separate kitchen, bathroom, sitting room and bedroom. Of course, it was a king's chamber compared to what she'd been living with for some time. And it would be all to herself. At least, if Dumbledore didn't detect the subtle compulsion she'd placed on Tonks earlier that day, the compulsion to spend a night at Sirius' place instead of coming home.

She examined the kettle, having briefly forgotten the function of it. To boil water. Iris shakily removed the kettle from its sitting place, afraid that her rough, barbaric hands might break it. She removed the lid. It was a simple enough design. She moved over to the sink, to the tap. She turned the handle. Water fell out. Transparent, colorless, cold.

Iris watched the water, mesmerized. How long had it been since she'd seen such a sight? A month or so after the Muggle government fell, people were introduced to unpasteurized brown sludge from their water systems. People got into fights about clean water. Rogue killings, especially parents of young children, to keep their kids safe. Some of the more reckless ones tried drinking the disgusting muck, was immediately discouraged either by the taste or diarrhea. In an age where medicine and medical assistance wasn't readily available, it was easy to die from shitting too hard. Some wizards tried to sell water they'd conjured through _aguamenti_. After that, it didn't really shock Iris to hear that some wizards had been enslaved by Muggles so they could conjure water and multiply food.

Iris closed the tap and set the kettle on the gas stove. She was afraid to use it, she was afraid she'd do something wrong with it and it wouldn't light, instead leaving the gas to build up in the kitchen and blow up in Tonks' face later. She pulled a face and left it alone. She'd been assimilated into her wasteland mindset for so damn long. She didn't remember anything.

Funnily enough, she still remembered how to operate an automobile. One of the first things she'd done when anarchy fell was steal some rich prick's Porsche and go on a joyride. That memory was clear in her mind for whatever reason, as was the sensation of pressing down on the clutch, shifting gear, braking and accelerating and cornering just right. She might have to get it back in her head to use the indicators, though.

Tonks' room was surprisingly clean. Iris supposed Tonks didn't have much to do, all alone; she didn't even have a television, it seemed, or a radio. Iris wondered if she should prank Tonks. Set up a network of high-quality speakers in and around her rooms. Soon as she gets home from work? _Give yourself to the Dark Side_. Cue Imperial March and cut the lights in Tonks' flat. She'd shit herself.

Maybe for another time, when she was used to handling electronics again. Iris peeked into the bathroom. Pretty standard stuff, but she hadn't seen a working shower in ages. She found a clean, fluffy towel, and grimaced when she realized she'd left dusty fingerprints on the white fabric. She placed the towel just outside the bathtub that was practically too small for anything but a child. She removed her clothing, dropping them onto the tiles. Her nose wrinkled when she realized just how badly she'd dressed all these years. Compared to the cleanliness in Tonks' flat, the dirty, dusty and sweat-caked bandages she'd been using to keep her chest tightly packed weren't giving her any points.

She removed it slowly. How long had it been since she'd seen her own body like this? She didn't remember having so many fucking scars. She wasn't Madam Pomfrey level, but she did feel she'd become quite the spontaneous field medic. She stepped gingerly into the tub and drew the shower curtains closed.

She turned to tap again and cold water sprayed on her. She didn't flinch. However, she did flinch when it started to get warm. She'd forgotten about warm water. Christ, the things you forget in a wasteland, huh? Iris was capable of heating water, but she'd completely missed the real usage of that bit of magic - heating baths. She was a fucking idiot; for no reason, she'd been bathing in cold water the past fifteen-ish years.

Iris watched the water running off her turn into a swirling brown eddy as it approached the drain. Fuck, she was disgusting. Iris grabbed Tonks' shampoo and dumped half the contents on her head. She scrubbed her scalp furiously. Apparently, occasionally casting a cleaning charm on yourself wasn't enough.

The suds were almost black when it spiraled down the drain. Iris squirted body soap onto herself and scrubbed furiously with a pink body sponge, the same way one might treat a stubborn stain on a frying pan. Dead skin was torn off alongside dried blood, sweat, and pus. It was all washed away in a revolting rainbow of the colors of sickness and death.

She estimated it took her forty minutes in the shower to thoroughly clean herself. Her face a little more difficult, because it was hard for her to close her right eye, as damaged as that eyelid was. She didn't want to accidentally gouge her eye out in the process of scrubbing her face, or something.

She poured generous amounts of conditioner into her hair when she was done. Hopefully, this would make it a little easier when brushing out fifteen years' worth of accumulated knots in her hair. She stayed under the water for another five minutes, just because. She eventually had to resort to her iron willpower to shut off the tap.

She drew back the shower curtains and while she dried herself off, she realized, there was no way in hell she was putting her old clothes back on.

No fucking way.

They stunk like a bitch, especially whatever clothes she'd been wearing underneath. White v-neck undershirts that were anything but white at this point. She sent a wandless vanishing charm at it; if she tried burning it, she'd probably get knocked out by the fumes. She vanished all of her underclothes; the spandex tights that she'd been wearing for warmth, the bandages that served as a makeshift bra, and whatever monstrosity that her underwear had morphed into after all these years. To be fair, there were no menstrual hygiene products in the bleak future.

The cloak, the dragonhide armor, and the accessories like the wand holsters, she wouldn't vanish. But they needed to be washed somehow and Iris wasn't entirely sure how leather was meant to be cleaned. She did however put her silk shirt and silk pants into the washing machine, conveniently located next to the bathroom sink, intending on asking Tonks to help her with it later.

She stared at her nude form in the mirror. She wasn't even planning to, really, it just caught her eye. She was different. She looked civilized. The wild mop of hair that hung down her crazed eye was gone, now that it was clean and wasn't held together like a bird's nest due to all her sweat and grease. Her body - how long ago was the last time she'd seen it? - was lean, lacking in fat, and her skin hugged her muscles. Well, not that she'd expect anything else when her diet consisted of Stalin's Peasant Supreme every fucking day.

But she looked worse than she thought she'd have.

Oh, she'd aged well, that was for certain - not a single wrinkle on her face or body - which was a surprise considering her lifestyle. Maybe, when she fell through the Veil, she was made a little younger, a compromise between her current age and however old she should have been in 1995? She'd had her suspicions, especially because it seemed to her like her line of sight was shorter than before, and she decided that, considering how youthful she appeared, this was probably the case.

But she was also looking like a prisoner of war. Her ribs were more prevalent than her breasts. Her stomach was non-existent and her limbs were spindly like that of an insect. Every surface of her body imaginable - and yes, she checked her arse too - was covered in scars, big or small, recent or old. Some of the oldest being a circular puncture wound from the basilisk, and the massive silvery noughts-and-crosses playing field etched into her back from her time with Vernon.

In short, she hated how she looked.

She wasn't her persona. She wasn't intimidating. She wasn't a rogue agent hellbent on killing the entire administrative branch of the government. She wasn't a dark witch. She wasn't the Devil of the Thames, she wasn't the Butcher, she wasn't the Vanquisher of Voldemort. She was just _Freak_, having grown through puberty with too little nutrition and too much pain. She wasn't scary. She was just ugly.

The mirror cracked with a piercing crash. A spiderweb of near-invisible lines reached all the way across the large, square mirror hanging above the bathroom sink. Iris was thankful for that. She could pretend that there were no tears brimming at her eyes, that way.

Iris left the bathroom, determinedly not looking at any of the other mirrors. She'd have to apologize to Tonks about that. She desperately reined her magic in - she hadn't been this stressed in a long time. Her magic was like a rabid dog tugging on her leash, swirling around her, wanting to pounce, wanting to destroy indiscriminately.

Thank goodness that Tonks was the same size as she was. Iris wasn't entirely sure if it was appropriate borrowing Tonks' underwear, especially when she didn't know Iris well (Iris knew Tonks well enough in the other world, thank you very much) but she decided it was better than the alternative where she wore Tonks' pajama bottoms all commando. She picked out a yellow-and-white stripey pair and pulled them on. She glanced at the bras. By no means was Tonks filled out in that region, but anything she had would still be bigger than whatever Iris needed to hold up. Iris snorted self-depreciatingly.

She moved onto the pajamas. She didn't want to pick out Tonks' favorite set or anything, so she chose whatever was at the very bottom of the very neatly stacked pile in her closet. It turned out to be a slightly faded, lavender-colored set that was thick enough to be warm without being too restricting. She pulled these on and thought about socks, before she decided otherwise. She was enjoying the sensation of bare toes on the soft carpet, one she'd not long experienced, and she would also enjoy the sensation of her toes in the undoubtedly crisp sheets of Tonks' military-neat bed.

If there was one exception to just how amazingly neat Tonks was, it was her pillows. Like, eight of them; they were arranged haphazardly on the double bed in weird angles and positions. Just as Iris remembered, honestly. Her memories began bubbling back to the surface of her mind, memories she wished would stay hidden, as she experimentally picked up one of the pillows, a very soft, pink plushy one.

The pillow reminded her of that one time she'd shared a bed with Tonks. Sure, they'd crashed together before, but it had been the first time they'd ever done anything with each other. They'd had a good time. At least Iris had. Back then she was still quite inexperienced and uncertain of her abilities, but Tonks had assured her that she'd done well. But it was what happened _after _that remained branded in her mind. Slightly hot, they'd opted to remove the blankets, but then it was too cold. The two girls had found the perfect compromise of temperature by cuddling close. It was the stench of Nymphadora's sweat, the underlying perfume, smelling slightly of wildflowers, the way her hair unconsciously changed from pink to red in a burst of passion and then down to a muted brown as she relaxed into sleep. It was the way her slender fingers interlocked with Iris' own, and her powerful, muscular thigh wrapped around her waist as if to protect her, and the way her gentle, slow breathing brushed Iris' forehead like the gentlest of kisses.

Iris threw the bedroom curtains shut and dived into the sheets. She curled up, into a ball, yelling at herself internally to go to sleep, furious with herself for allowing herself to cry, too emotional to even remember to stop and feel the sheets. She held the soft pillow to herself desperately as one of its purple comrades dampened from the leaking tears. Despite her heightened tensions, though, it didn't take her long to fall asleep. She was truly exhausted, her muscles numb with exertion to the point that even that big fat bruise on her thigh from her Ministry escapade didn't hurt much anymore.

* * *

"I understand that it might be taxing for many of you to attend two Order meetings in one day, but I believe we need to discuss the topic from earlier."

Auror Emmeline Vance would have liked to complain. There were more and more frequent Order meetings recently as they were, and most of them were 80% arguments between Sirius Black and Severus Snape. Both idiots, frankly. But she couldn't really complain, the Aurors on their manhunt had been recalled by noon - only a couple of hours after starting - because suddenly, nobody could remember who they were hunting for.

"I believe the Auror force has taken to calling their original target 'Archangel', based on their task name of Operation Archangel. With information we've received from a few of the Aurors, I have concluded that Archangel is an exceedingly powerful force that should not be agitated, if discovered."

Emmeline paused. Dumbledore knew of many things that were 'exceedingly powerful' and should not be agitated. He'd warned them plenty enough times, as if her abilities as an Auror of twelve years was in question. But Archangel was a person; everyone remembered that still. And the only person that Dumbledore considered them to be _truly_ out of their league, at least individually, was You-Know-Who himself.

Another player had entered the game, then.

"I have determined that Archangel cast a Fidelius charm on their identity," Dumbledore said, earning looks of surprise and nervousness from the other members. Even Snape seemed to have no complaint. "As you know, the Fidelius is extremely taxing magic with a considerable consequence on one's health and magic if attempted casually. Archangel, having come through the Veil, would not have allies, hence one can conclude that they are a powerful enough wizard to perform the Fidelius by themselves."

"We might be able to find out who the secret-keeper was, and go from there," Remus suggested.

"Ah. That would ordinarily be the first course of action, but Archangel fell out of the Veil," Dumbledore rebuffed gently. "They have no contacts, at least ones that share mutual trust. I believe that they would instead choose a complete stranger, likely a Muggle, and obliviate them of the event afterward, making even the secret-keeper forget their meeting. Naturally, they can't forget the secret, but if they were Muggle, they'd never notice a compulsion charm that keeps the secret hidden deep within their mind."

The Order members glanced at each other. "So, how do we deal with this problem?" Arthur asked.

"We can't," Dumbledore replied, to the shock of others. "Like I said to Kingsley and Nymphadora earlier, it is entirely possible that we sit down next to Archangel, have a conversation, get their name and face and floo address, and we would still never be able to realize they are, in fact, Archangel. Such is the nature of the Fidelius charm."

"We can't fight back," Emmeline guessed.

"Not at all," Dumbledore agreed easily. For a supposed threat, he was being very casual about it. "While we will never know their identity, we can figure out a few things about their character. For example, we still know that Archangel somehow recognized Nymphadora and Kingsley, and ceased attacking them once they realized they were real. Thus, we can conclude that they are not hostile towards either Nymphadora and Kingsley, and it is entirely possible they are not antagonistic towards other Order members."

"It's only a possibility," Snape, the ever-pessimistic bat, said.

"Of course it's only a possibility," Emmeline couldn't resist snarking. "We just discussed how we know nothing about them."

"Settle down," Dumbledore said soothingly. Snape glared across the table and Emmeline glared right back. "I believe it is unlikely that Archangel will be openly hostile to us. Perhaps excepting you, Severus, considering your tattoo." Emmeline snorted, and she wasn't the only one; much more effective was his abrasive personality than any Dark Mark at antagonizing people. "However, I cannot assure that Harry is safe. He is a child of great import, after all, and Archangel may seek to use him for their own purposes. I would not risk him getting hurt in any way, and I think it may be important to keep watch over him. Possibly double the guards during twilight hours."

"Or you could just bring him over here before he dies of boredom," Sirius growled.

"I would usually answer no, but I think with recent events in mind, that would be a wise suggestion," Dumbledore sighed. "Aurors? Would it be possible for you to remain this afternoon and carry out the operation early?"

"Far too less time to scout and plan," Moody grumbled.

"While Privet Drive has more than a few wards in place, none of it will be any hindrance to someone who can cast the Fidelius on their own," Dumbledore said sharply, his previous exhaustion disappearing for a brief moment. Emmeline felt a shiver run down her spine; while there were more of such scenes recently, she could never get over how much power and authority Dumbledore seemed to radiate when he wasn't playing the part of barmy headmaster and instead a general. "We can only hope that Archangel is incapacitated for a short time after their spellcasting and has to recover, if indeed their motive is to harm Harry."

"Fine, fine," Moody muttered. "Shacklebolt, Tonks, Vance, Lupin, Podmore. Get your arses ready for the recovery operation. We have no time to lose."

Emmeline stood from her seat, as did a host of other Order members. They walked quickly out of the room - Tonks winced as she struck her hip against one of the chairs - and walked to the broom closet. They, one by one, grabbed their brooms and a set of invisibility cloaks. They were nowhere near as perfect and durable as the one the Potter family owned, but they were useful nonetheless. Less area to cover with the disillusionment charm.

"Make sure to fly in formation," Moody barked. "Podmore, you're the scout. You fly ten seconds ahead and make sure nothing intercepts us."

"Yes, sir," Sturgis Podmore said, and set off.

About ten seconds later, the other five took to the skies. Emmeline sincerely believed she would be okay. What were the chances that they'd accidentally run into Archangel, and even if they did, what were the chances that they'd be attacked? Especially not if Tonks and Kingsley were with them. But she couldn't shrug off her worry, embedded in her thoughts like an irritating thorn.

A man as powerful as Dumbledore, somehow summoned - she refused to believe they fell through the Veil for no apparent reason - from another world, right after the Dark Lord returned. Was it a last-ditch effort by the government in denial to get rid of You-Know-Who once and for all?

This was getting interesting. Her journal might not be able to keep up.

* * *

Arthur sighed. The meetings never really seemed to harbor good news. In fact, it seemed like every other meeting began with a minute of silence for those killed by newly invigorated Death Eater lieutenants, usually attacking Muggles or Muggleborn families.

And now, there was news about 'Archangel', a mysterious figure that dropped out of the Veil carrying magical power and skill to overwhelm Unspeakables, Aurors, and surpassing possibly Dumbledore himself, the beacon of light in these dark times. It all had to happen in such a short span of time, didn't it? The resurrection of You-Know-Who, the stranger from the Veil…

He snapped his fingers as an idea came to him, and he began to rummage through a small, inconspicuous cabinet off to the side. In there were sheaves of paper, which recorded all the meetings' proceedings in text. At the very top was the newest recording, the one from the meeting they just had. One more below that was from that morning.

He plucked it out, and he began to read. It only served to make him more frustrated, however. There were places where Kingsley and Nymphadora were describing the physical features of Archangel, Arthur was sure of it! But wherever there was such information, his brain would not process it. It simply couldn't, as if he had spontaneously developed a severe case of dyslexia whenever he came across their facial features, or even their pronoun, as if he were reading a different alphabet.

He put down the transcript in disgust. So it really was a Fidelius. And there was a possibility that Harry might be caught up in all of this madness.

When he turned around, he came face-to-face with Sirius Black. Arthur had never really had an opportunity to speak to the man, even before his imprisonment - it didn't go much beyond their involvement in the Order. Even now, within his own house, he didn't speak to Sirius much except greetings and small talk.

The man had filled out quite nicely since his days of wrongful imprisonment, but he still seemed to lack the color, the _humanity_ one usually expected from, well, humans. It wasn't his fault, obviously - but the misery and dark chill that this man seemed to radiate was always a little disturbing.

"I can't decipher the transcript," Arthur sighed, showing Sirius. "It's as if I'm reading another language, but only when Archangel's physical features are being described."

"That is torturing my brain," Sirius said, frowning at the parchment before putting it back. "I wonder where this Archangel comes from."

"He definitely used magic, didn't he? So that must mean he comes from a world like ours, perhaps even a mirror world," Arthur smiled.

"Hopefully it's not another Voldemort," Sirius growled, and Arthur managed to hide most of his flinch. "We've already got enough on our hands with one dark lord."

"Hopefully," Arthur agreed solemnly. There weren't many people that could match Albus' magical strength; of those, You-Know-Who was the most obvious. "But Albus did say that he wasn't hostile to Nymphadora and Kingsley, even when they were acting as Aurors."

"It's a glimmer of hope," Sirius agreed.

The two men remained quiet for a bit. Eventually, they began discussing what Harry's summer might have been like. Sirius didn't really have a high opinion of the Muggles that Harry lived with, and Arthur was inclined to agree. Hopefully, they left Harry alone for the most part.

Soon that question would be answered, for the front door had opened. Sirius grinned wide and rushed to the entrance hall, Arthur following shortly behind. The thought of the young man who was by all but name his adopted son brought a smile to his face.

"Sirius," Harry breathed, and charged into Sirius' arms.

He didn't seem particularly happy yet, but he was also safe. Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. He'd had his doubts, especially with this Archangel character on the loose, but Harry was safe and would be safe so long as he remained here.


	4. Chapter 4

Maybe it was false hope.

* * *

_Her power was simply unchecked. _

_Dumbledore sat unflinching in his cushy and overly flamboyant Headmaster's chair as whirlpools of Iris' magic howled like the winds of a hurricane. Hurricane was an apt term for Iris' magic currently; the vortex crackled and thundered as they brushed against whatever ambient magic Hogwarts provided or the passive magic present in Dumbledore's many silvery contraptions, littered around his office, and created little sparks of magical light._

_Iris didn't recognize any of them. Except, maybe, the sneakoscope. She noticed that because its desperate whining, ever fading, was present even underneath the rough tumbling of Iris' magic. The spinning top was rotating so fast that the centrifugal force was warping its very shape. Soon enough, the worn, frayed metal band snapped with a loud squeal, shot across the room and embedded itself in the stone wall. The whining stopped._

_The previous headmasters' and headmistresses' portraits were screaming at Dumbledore to do something, but their voices went unheard in the thunderstorm raging in the office. The majority of them had evacuated to any other portrait frames they might have, within this school or out. _

"_Calm down, Iris. The portraits are terrified."_

"_Calm down?" Iris laughed lowly. "Calm down? You're telling me to calm down after you tell me I'm nothing more than a sacrificial lamb you've been raising to the slaughter?"_

"_You're not a sacrifice, I assure you-"_

_Iris' magic leaped out like an enraged beast in all directions, making Dumbledore flinch for the first time and the shattering glass windows tinkled down onto the grounds like snow. Iris, as furious as she was, had no intention of hurting her old headmaster. She too had committed atrocities. She couldn't help but form a smirk on her face as she realized that, ironically enough, after murdering seven people she'd approached Dumbledore's notion of the 'Greater Good' than she'd have ever realized._

"_Don't lie to me," Iris said in a voice that carried razor-sharp steel but an underlying tone of exhaustion, of pleading, of wanting finality. "I would have died for my friends. I would have done so without a second thought. But you tore my friends away from me."_

_Dumbledore was extremely uncomfortable. Why shouldn't he be? Iris understood, partly. She was an Aztec sacrifice; chosen to be given to the Gods, to a greater power, such that it would bring health, security, and prosperity to the entire population. Dumbledore simply happened to be the cleric who was tasked with choosing one such virgin sacrifice._

"_Why?"_

_Iris had tears in her eyes now._

"_Why make me suffer? Why is it me?" Iris collapsed into her chair and covered her face. "Why can't I be happy? Does this prophecy only exist to make me want to die?"_

"_Even in all my years of knowledge and wisdom, that is something beyond me," Dumbledore said sadly. It wasn't false sympathy, either. _

"_Could you not have helped me?" Iris glared at Dumbledore through her fingers. "Why did you leave me with the Dursleys? Why couldn't I have been with… with you?" She choked. "Why couldn't you have trained me, given me knowledge? Given me the strength to defeat Voldemort? Do I not deserve happiness?"_

_Dumbledore didn't respond. However, he did allow himself a moment of relief as Iris' immense magical power shrunk back meekly into her flesh, trying their best to heal the wounds on the inside of Iris, nevermind that it was an impossible task._

"_How can I aid you, my dear?" Dumbledore asked quietly._

_Iris continued to glare. "You can help me by never bothering me again."_

_And thus ended any measure of an amicable relationship between the student and headmaster. Both of them knew it, both of them lamented it, but both were too afraid to try and rebuild the smoldering ruin of a bridge between them. _

"_I understand." Dumbledore stood and, brushing past the weeping Iris Potter, left the room._

_The portraits had not gotten over their terror and had not returned. It was a good thing, too, because the only thing the portraits were capable of doing at that point was berating Iris, which no doubt would have sent her into another fit of rage resulting in the utter and complete destruction of those portraits once and for all._

_The only other occupant of the office was Fawkes, who after staring at Iris for a long time with a mixture of emotions in his observant black eyes, hopped off his perch and toward Iris. Iris' tears had long since dried, and she looked up from her shoes onto the bird. The bird cocked its head warily, examining her._

"_You'd come so close to me?" Iris laughed softly, bitterly. "Even after what I've done?"_

_The bird fixed the girl with an intelligent stare, one that conveyed disappointment, deep sorrow, and at the same time, understanding. Iris wondered just how perceptive this bird was, whether it understood through reading minds or some other mystical ability. _

"_I had your wand, you know," Iris said bitterly. "I suppose it made sense, the way it didn't respond well to me in its last days. I'm sorry it was wasted on me."_

_Fawkes hopped closer, within Iris' reach now, but the girl made no move to touch him. Fawkes trilled quietly, only really meant for her ears. It was not optimistic, or even happy, but it was comforting. He shook his wings and Iris' eyes snapped up in amazement as a single, copper-colored feather fell onto her lap. The feather of a phoenix, freely offered._

"_I…" Iris swallowed. "You're giving this to me?"_

_Fawkes trilled._

"_Can I make a wand with it?"_

_He cocked his head again. If the bird had eyebrows, it would be raising it mockingly. As if to say, 'what else would you do? Eat it?'_

"_Why?"_

_Iris swore the bird simply… shrugged. She supposed animals, even magical ones likely capable of intelligent thought, had a tendency to rely more on their instinct than logic compared to humans. For which, she was both ashamed and thankful. Thankful because he'd accepted her for what she was. Ashamed because both of them were disappointed in whatever she was and they knew it._

_But, it also provided a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she wasn't truly lost yet, Iris told herself. Perhaps the phoenix's instincts would prove correct._

_Ordinarily, they might have, but Iris' fate wasn't as forgiving._

* * *

So, what had happened to her, Iris Polaris Potter, that landed her in this new world?

She sincerely didn't remember any events that led to her being deposited in front of the Veil. She remembered her history, just not the part regarding whatever had moved her across dimensions. Was she fighting someone, and hit by an obliviation somehow? Legilimency? Or was she simply concussed badly in the process of traveling through dimensions?

She also didn't really know this world, it seemed. It felt familiar, but there was a certain _wrongness_, or at least an unfamiliarity, at the back of her mind. Her presence here had already managed to change the course of events, it felt like. However, one thing was certain.

Voldemort was here.

Even from so far away, hidden away in Malfoy Manor under a nice collection of stealth wards (Voldemort apparently did not know of the Fidelius charm, and Iris doubted he trusted anyone enough anyway to cast one) she could smell the stench of his corrupted magic. The Horcruxes also remained intact. The war had not yet begun, but it would soon.

Iris had an opportunity to destroy Voldemort before things got out of hand. This brought a smile to her face.

But Voldemort wasn't going to be accessible for some time. After all, what he was doing was raising his army, currently. Reaching out to acromantulas, to giants. Using Lucius Malfoy's, and other pureblood idiots' money to gather supplies. Influencing politics, probably with a stake in the Prophet as well. Iris would have to spend the meantime damaging Voldemort's base.

Her first act would be to break into Azkaban, murder the convicted Death Eaters - Rookwood and the Lestrange brothers were particularly bothersome in her timeline - and kidnap one of the Lestranges. Could be Bellatrix or Rabastan or Rodolphus. She would prefer Rabastan, as he was the least insane of the three; Bellatrix was obviously insane, and her husband Rudolph would also have to be insane to an extent to be able to put up with that bitch. Least insane, meant most perceptible to her scare tactics and torture.

She stared at herself in Tonks' bathroom mirror. She'd decided that minor spells such as _reparo_ wouldn't pick up on any magical radar, so she'd fixed it. She'd gone shopping earlier, transfiguring sheet paper to look like pound notes. She'd gotten herself some clothes, as well as supplies that one might be confused about.

In this new world, she needed every advantage she could get. Iris knew that well enough. Even with her explosive magical power and her training, Voldemort had been by far the most powerful opponent she'd ever fought, one who had almost bested her on more than one occasion. That meant she needed to be able to carry as many weapons as possible, and that meant she needed to be able to wield magic without her wands. That could be achieved either by mastering wandless magic - bound to take decades, if not longer - or embedding a wand into her arm.

She'd actually done this before, about eight years after the War. It'd been a rather spontaneous idea, in fact. Judging by how the Elder Wand continued to reappear after each attempt Iris made at snapping it and throwing it out, she'd come to the conclusion that the Elder Wand's magical properties were not limited by its physical form. Indeed, even when transfigured into a greatstaff, a sword, or even a frying pan, the Elder Wand did not lose its magical properties. So, she'd transfigured the wand to fit her forearm, and embedded it inside. She'd removed it eventually because it started causing her burning pains in her arm since the soft tissue was be chafed against the foreign instrument every time she used that arm.

Now, though, Voldemort was back and his demise took priority.

She could only do this because of the unique properties of the Elder Wand; she remembered well enough how her original holly wand had spluttered and died as a result of it being snapped. She wasn't going to risk changing the physical properties of her new holly wand. She pulled out a small box she'd nicked from behind the prescription counter at the pharmacist. She opened it and pulled out a foil-wrapped package of four small bottles and an equal number of small needles. She removed one of each and injected the morphine into her left arm, the arm she usually used to wield the Elder Wand.

She watched the liquid disappear, and once it did, she vanished the needle and bottle. She waited for a few minutes for the effects to kick in; the whole arm was getting numb. That was good. What she was going to do was very painful the first time she did it, and while Iris may be tolerant of pain considering her childhood and her adulthood, she wasn't a masochist. She shoved a mouthguard onto her teeth, chewed it experimentally, and went into the bathroom.

Then she took a black tactical knife she'd purchased that day, and held her left arm out on the sink, and pressed the tip down onto her arm. She still twitched from the pain and clenched her jaw hard enough that she felt her teeth might crack even through the mouthguard. The blade sunk a whole inch into her flesh, and with increasing pain, she sliced her arm open. She could feel herself getting woozy as the blood dripped into the sink and tumbled into the drain. Iris discarded the knife once she'd made a cut about nine inches in length, letting it drop into the sink. She grabbed a blood-replenishing potion, also store-bought, pried it open with her mouth and downed the foul substance as quickly as she could.

With a grunt, she slowly pushed the Elder Wand inside the wound. She should've taken another shot of morphine - or would that knock her out? She continued to shove the length of wood inside her arm with difficulty; her fingers spasmed in pain as the tip of the wand bumped against her wrist. Iris continued to push the wand into her arm. Her technique was rough and probably damaging to the tissue, but it couldn't be helped when her entire arm was having involuntary reactions to the pain.

Eventually, when the majority of the wand was settled inside her limb, Iris downed another blood-replenishing potion and picked up her Holly wand. She set about changing the shape of the wand, making it thin and layering it over her radius, the less exposed side of her arm, in a manner that matched the bone as closely as possible so the soft tissue around it would not be as irritated.

When that was done - thirty painstaking minutes and three blood-replenishing potions later - she closed the wound with murmurs of _Vulnera Sanentur_. The same healing spell used to fix _Sectumsempra_ wounds. She gasped, feeling lightheaded, and were she not as agile as she were, she would have fallen forward and hit her head on the ceramic basin of the bathroom sink. She held herself steady as she vanished as much of the blood as possible, and let the water flow to drain away whatever else of it that she could. Blood could be used for a lot of obscure magic, and she wasn't going to let anyone get ahold of any of it.

Once she was all done, she stared at the newest scar on her collection, running parallel to the scar she'd gotten when she'd done it the first time. She pulled on one of Tonks' undershirts once she was clean, and wiped her holly wand down with an antibacterial wipe. She vanished this as well, once its purpose was fulfilled.

She then laid out all of her newest acquisitions from her morning shopping spree onto Tonks' bed. There were several sets of clothes, including underwear, several days' worth of microwave meals in case she had to hide in the wilderness again (these were easily cooked with magic), her two new knives (much better quality than post-war items), a heavy Glock and ammunition, as well as a shrunken trunk full of potions and dragonhide armor.

The dragonhide armor, to be as effective as her cloak and hood, would have to be stitched together with several sheets of carbon nanotube cloth and adorned with runes for all sorts of elemental and magical resistance. However, for a mission as mundane as infiltrating Azkaban, it would do well enough; there were so few human guards that incoming magic was hardly a problem.

Now, to prepare for the extraction of one of the Lestranges.

Of all the skills that Voldemort had, the most crucial one to his terrorist campaign was his knowledge of psychology. Sure, he didn't exactly have a Ph.D. from Oxford, but he ruled with fear and terror and knew all about it. He constructed himself as a superhuman figure, one that was invulnerable to attacks from mere mortals. All his generals wore masks that stripped them of any human features and therefore stripped them of their empathy. That would only inspire even more fear in their victims, as it meant their death would be certain. Fear, of course, meant loss of morale and will to fight.

While the Devil was a convincing persona, and one that Iris used frequently (mostly for her own amusement), there was a much more effective persona one could construct to inspire fear in their victims. The one entity that even the Devil feared; God. God was an almighty being that was omnipotent, and most importantly, directed the flow of the universe itself. Thus, defying God meant that one was defying the course of nature itself, which would, in turn, lead to a sense of not just fear, but guilt, doubt, and _wrongness_.

Playing God was difficult, but rewarding. Her glamours and illusions needed to be unbreakable, and more importantly, inhuman. She had to utilize the full scope of her imagination like she was a surrealist painter high on LSD, to create a divine figure recognizable and alien at the same time. She'd have time to think about it while she went on her little rescue mission. She'd need to transfigure a corpse to look like Rabastan. His straw mattress should do the job well enough.

Iris stepped outside of Tonks' home, cast a notice-me-not charm on herself, and apparated out of there.

* * *

Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek as she read the morning's Prophet.

While she wasn't strictly _supposed_ to have overheard Headmaster Dumbledore and the Order's meetings, she'd just stuck around Fred and George as they tested their Extendable Ears and couldn't help listening in. Supposedly, a very powerful sorcerer had dropped out of the Veil yesterday. Since then, this mysterious figure - 'Archangel' as they were called - had bested a team of Unspeakables, the combined power of Kingsley and Tonks, cast a Fidelius on their very identity.

Hermione knew by Archangel's reaction to the two Aurors' presence, that they were not antagonistic towards them. Meaning, it was entirely possible that Archangel was on their side. But if they were, then they were the light side's equivalent of Fenrir Greyback, for all the damage they did. She wondered if anyone else suspected Archangel was the cause of today's early-morning Azkaban rampage.

Law enforcement officials didn't have much to say, but they found inmates cowering, from the figure itself or the fiendfyre they released they didn't know. Twelve convicted Death Eaters were burned to death, it seemed. Bellatrix Lestrange, in particular, showed signs of torture and mutilation before her death; while every other corpse was a mess of glassy, half-melted bones, Bellatrix Lestrange's corpse was thoroughly damaged, and there was evidence that all bones below the knees or elbows were shattered with a blunt instrument, likely a hammer.

Hermione shivered.

"Terrible business, isn't it?" Ginny said, reading over Hermione's shoulder.

"I say good riddance," Harry muttered.

"Harry! It's one thing to kill someone," Hermione hesitated. "And another thing to torture your victims before killing them in the most painful way possible."

"Why shouldn't they get a taste of their own medicine? From what I know, Neville's parents were held under the Cruciatus curse for over fifteen minutes each until their nervous system was irreversibly damaged."

Hermione chewed her lip. "And how would it make you feel to stoop as low as them?"

"I couldn't care less," Harry scoffed. This was _not_ the direction Hermione wanted him to go. "They deserve it."

"How do you think they got into Azkaban?" Hermione asked, trying to change the topic. "Same way Sirius got out, do you think?"

"Or they could cast one _hell_ of a Patronus," Ginny said. Hermione glared at her for her choice of language.

It was at that moment that their conversation at the kitchen table was interrupted by an ethereal lynx. The cat dashed past the three students and paused in front of Albus Dumbledore, the only person other than Hermione to be frowning at the day's newspaper. Dumbledore looked up as the lynx began to speak in Kingsley's rich voice, one that was generally pleasant to hear, but his tone seemed to indicate both fear and disgust.

"_Rabastan Lestrange's… body has reappeared in his original Azkaban cell. I have no idea how he was slipped past the extra security. He's not dead, but he is braindead. Shows extensive signs of torture. Even in the entirety of my Auror career, this has to be one of the most gruesome scenes I've ever come across._"

Dumbledore stood up and went to the window, where almost immediately an owl - owned by the Order - perched on the windowsill. He opened the window and grimly unwrapped the envelope holding whatever information Kingsley and Tonks had managed to scrounge up from the scene of the crime. He gave the owl a few treats before settling down on his chair again and removing the contents.

"May I see?" Remus asked. Dumbledore nodded as he removed a couple of photographs from the envelope. Both their eyes widened. Remus turned around and retched into the sink, to Mrs. Weasley's shock.

"Professor Lupin!" Harry exclaimed, standing up and crossing the room to Dumbledore. It was possible the Headmaster would reprimand Harry for looking at confidential information, but whatever it was, it had him so shocked that he didn't register Harry's presence. Harry and Mrs. Weasley both peeked. The latter gasped and covered her eyes, spinning around and pretending she never saw anything. Hermione had never actually seen someone's 'blood drain from their face', but Harry's unnatural paling provided a new reference.

"Don't look," Harry said in a gurgling voice. Obviously, this piqued Ginny and Hermione's curiosity and they came, Remus, who had finished retching, tried to wave them away but that didn't stop them. Ginny shrieked in horror. Hermione felt her heart plummet through her stomach and into her feet.

The photograph showed what might as well be a corpse. Kingsley had said Lestrange was only braindead, but the fact that this person was still _alive_ while suffering this badly made it even worse.

* * *

"Who the hell are you?" Rabastan Lestrange wheezed.

He had, after all, been dragged through about five miles of water by a man who could somehow walk on top of it. The man wore an immaculate black suit of Muggle origin, though the fabric seemed to be of an extremely fine magical material, likely acromantula silk. The black gloves he wore on his hands were made of the highest quality dragon-leather, and his ink-black shoes were polished until Rabastan could see his face in them.

"A lot of people know me," the man said simply. "Whether they choose to believe I exist, however, is a different matter entirely. I like to think that I exist. Or, perhaps, I am simply a manifestation of someone's imagination."

"Are you…" Rabastan hesitated. "Are you a god?"

"Am I a god, or am I God?"

"Stop speaking in riddles, damn you!" Rabastan Lestrange spat. However, the man crouched down, and Rabastan felt fear as he saw the gloved hand before his face. They not-too-gently jabbed at Rabastan's bloody lips and he was immediately silenced.

Wandless magic. His eyes widened.

"I shall speak however I like," the man replied with a smug silkiness. "The world is much more fluid and complicated than you think. The reason you mortals will categorize anything and everything into fact and fiction is because you would not be able to handle the sheer volume of 'truth' with your pathetic little minds."

Rabastan struggled, but then found his body moving without his askance. His hands were pulled behind his back, and he was brought to a kneeling position, his head only staring at the polished shoes. Despite the fact that the ground was muddy, there wasn't a single speck of dirt on them - then his eyes widened when he realized that this _thing_ was floating about half an inch off the ground.

"I don't usually spend more time down here than I need to," the man continued. "It's frankly a waste of my effort. While no time will have passed in my home, I could not care less about individual humans. However, I do require your blood, so I take some from you."

Rabastan struggled fruitlessly against his invisible bonds as the man crouched down and unstopped a small crystal vial. He sliced open Rabastan's cheek with naught but his gloved left index finger, and while Rabastan was forcibly silent on the outside, he was having a panic attack within. He wanted to scream in terror, he wanted to faint, but something prevented him from doing so.

"Excellent," the smooth voice said. He stoppered the little flask. "Now what? Despite what people think, I am a surprisingly compassionate being. I like mortals, on occasion. I like to watch them flourish. Your allegiance lies with those only interested in exterminating other mortals. That I do not approve." His breath, smelling like mint, landed on Rabastan's ear. "I am more than capable of taking back my children. _I don't need you_."

Rabastan somehow managed to break through the silencing effect with a whimper.

"Perhaps we should make an example of what happens to those who assume to ascend to my celestial level, hm?" The man pulled out a bottle made from who knew what from who knew where. "The Muggles you so love to look down on have some wonderful things, accomplished wonderful things. This, my friend, is called hydrofluoric acid. Usually used in chemistry. The bottle is another curious creation of theirs, made of a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate. It is contained within this rather flimsy-looking bottle because hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive it will eat through glass. PET and lead are two things that are capable of containing this substance."

The man unscrewed the bottle cap and wafted the acid under Rabastan's face; immediately, burning pain shot through his nose, throat, and eyes. Even the mere fumes were damaging; he wanted to scream, but he could not, although his mind was doing more than enough screaming to make up for the lack of screaming on the outside. There was a large portion of his brain that was screaming _agony_ and a smaller but no less quiet part that was screaming _we're going to die here, by this man's hand_.

"Man?" The man spoke in an amused tone. "Don't you mean to say, by this _being's_ hand?"

He leaned in. "I'm not one of you."

Rabastan briefly considered the merits and demerits of being held under the Cruciatus instead of having concentrate hydrofluoric acid splashed into one's face. He could feel his eyes melting, and his skin bubbling on the surface and peeling off. He had a distinct feeling that he was meant to be poisoned but this _bastard_ was keeping him alive through magical means. He could briefly hear the laughter in the background.

"You would be correct, my friend," he purred.

Rabastan, even through the pain, realized that he could only hear this man so well because his voice was injected directly into his mind. Following that realization, Rabastan's consciousness was tugged out into a strange place, a strange place where the pain was dulled for a brief moment. This frightened Rabastan more than the pain; nothing good was coming for him.

"Aren't you on a roll today?" The slick voice said. That hated voice.

Rabastan turned and glared at the man. For the first time, Rabastan was able to get a look at the man's face that was more than a glimpse. He and the stranger were in a suburban Muggle neighborhood, the houses looking more or less identical except for size. The _being_ was, as before, wearing his immaculate black suit. His face… he had neatly combed, but formal brown hair, cleanly-shaved face. There seemed to be nothing exactly standing out about him. He seemed to be… _average_.

"Well, if I weren't in disguise, your eyes would have burned out from the raw power I emit," the _being_ smiled, though the smile didn't seem very humorous. He began to approach, walking silently for the soles of his shoes never touched the plain asphalt ground. "I wear this face to be forgettable. Who would remember me? But I know the faces of all. I know the face of your mother, your brother, the sister-in-law that you so love to fantasize raping in front of your brother." Rabastan cowered as the approaching _being_'s voice lowered into a snarl. And he demonstrated; his face turned into a mirror image of a sneering Bellatrix. "Not that you'll be able to, anyway. While it wouldn't surprise me if you enjoyed desecrating corpses for sexual purposes, Bellatrix's corpse is so mangled that you wouldn't know where to stick your prick in."

"What do you want from me?" Rabastan demanded, but it more sounded like whining. "Why do you do this?"

"What do I want _from_ you?" Bellatrix laughed. "What do you even _have_ that I want? No, my friend, all you are is something for me to amuse myself with." Bellatrix smiled a feral smile, a smile that even the real Bellatrix had never performed, one that reminded Rabastan of a goblin's smile. "I want to see if I can break you. No, I want to see _when_ I can break you, because I'm certain I can. I want to see you beg for mercy in front of all the filthy Muggles and Muggleborns that you killed. My friend, this neighborhood is inhabited solely by the victims of your extremist pureblood movement."

As if on cue, one of the doors opened. It was a middle-aged woman wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe. One of their Muggle victims, Rabastan realized. One of his very first. She picked up a newspaper that was at the door and smiled warmly at the _being_ as she realized who it was (who was he?). Then, she recognized Rabastan in his Death Eater robes - though his mask was gone - and she glared with raw hatred, a hatred that could have fuelled a hundred _Avada Kedavra_s had she any magic. She slammed the door closed.

"What…" Rabastan croaked, then the _thing_ looked up, frowning.

"It appears it's going to rain," the _thing_ said, as the iron-colored clouds gathered. Distantly, Rabastan heard thunder. The first few drops of water landed on the asphalt before him, creating little wet spots. One drop landed on Rabastan's robes and dissolved the fabric. His eyes widened.

"Oh dear," the _thing_ spoke drolly. "Hydrofluoric acid _again_. Who would have thought?"

He disappeared.

Rabastan slammed his fists on the doors and begged to be let in. The robes melted into nothingness around his body and soon enough his body was being scorched by the pain again. The Muggle families glared at him the same way they might to a homeless bum and slammed the door in his face. Rabastan had murdered, tortured all of these people. It might be a while yet until he was ever given shelter.

Rabastan screamed and cried and pleaded, but he received nothing but hostile confrontations. Once he was shot from point-blank with a shotgun after he tried to force his way into a Muggle household. The furious words of "and don't come back ever again!" followed him as he was blasted backward. He hardly registered the pain, not when all of his skin was on fire. The magical households would cast knockback jinxes at him, watching in grim satisfaction as he was yet again drowned in pain. They closed their doors and returned to whatever happy family thing they were doing as if they couldn't hear him scream. Perhaps they couldn't. Maybe it was magically sound-proofed.

He cried out in pain and terror and misery. He needed this to end. It had been more than ten minutes since it had started raining and he was no longer certain if even the Dark Lord could simulate this kind of pain. He begged any passersby to help him, as he tried to crawl to every house. He even begged for this - _God_ \- to come rescue him. But as surely as this _God_ had put him here, the _God_ didn't come back.

* * *

Seven hours later.

Tonks had just sent an owl to Dumbledore with photographs of Rabastan Lestrange's corpse. This sort of information, frankly, should be kept quiet, but Kingsley was certain it would be leaked to the media somehow. A story as violent as this was good for stirring up drama.

His partner was in the restroom, re-experiencing her breakfast in its entirety, and Amelia Bones had to be escorted out of the room on the arms of two of her veteran Aurors lest she faint right there on the spot. Indeed, the only one who didn't seem to be affected _too_ badly was Mad-Eye. He'd probably seen a few things similar to this during his career, but he had clearly stated to Kingsley, _nothing on this scale_.

Lestrange's corpse was covered in third-degree burns. All over. He'd had the usual torture routines done - his bones broken, his teeth and fingernails pulled, his genitals castrated. However, the torturer had somehow managed to give Lestrange third-degree burns all over his body without killing him, either through blood loss or infection. But that wasn't the most frightening part.

The most frightening part was the way the burlap sack covering Lestrange's head was seeping with blood where there used to be eyes and a mouth, making it look like a grotesque smiley-face a child might draw with crayons, and his arms and legs were held up in odd angles. Tendons had been torn out of Lestrange's arms and legs and then elongated and attached to the roof using a sticking charm, making him look like a puppet of nightmares. The message was clear, especially combined with the little _humorous _note on the wall written in Lestrange's own blood: '_Honest, guv, I was under the Imperius!_'

There was also a big '10' etched into what used to be his groin. Nobody knew what that meant, but Kingsley had the suspicion that it was meant to be an ominous countdown. He sincerely hoped he wasn't right, considering nine more repulsively ugly murders had to occur before reaching zero.

* * *

While everyone was distracted by this grisly murder, nobody noticed a young woman slip into Gringotts that day. To those that overheard, she was a bastard child of Rabastan Lestrange and now that the Lestranges were gone, wished to claim her inheritance. She pricked her thumb on the goblin-knife and successfully proved she was of relation to the Lestranges. She destroyed all cursed objects inside. Then she took everything - the gold, the Lestrange family grimoires, and Hufflepuff's chalice.


	5. Chapter 5

Maybe it was death.

* * *

_Iris stared at the woman sitting next to her. Between the two of them, they shivered and shared only a thin, worn cloak to fight the cold breeze, but were now warm from the combined body heat they released, leaning against each other._

"_She was always kind to me," Narcissa whispered, with a fond smile on her face, even as tears streamed down her strained, hollow cheeks. "Andromeda was the kind of sister that every girl wished they could have. Bellatrix… if you ignored her obsession with purity of blood, she was kind, too. Caring. I don't know what happened to her that made her so cruel, but…" she choked. "I regret not being there for her."_

"_It's not your fault, Cissy," Iris replied softly. Not many people were permitted to call Narcissa that._

"_I know," Narcissa mumbled. "She used to be so kind, you know. Bellatrix was always being yelled at because she'd take in every stray kitten or puppy that she could find. Once she brought back an injured bird. We all loved our little pets, Bella and Andie and I. And even when our mother tried shooing them away from our house, they'd be back the next day and we'd feed them scraps of steak." Narcissa took a deep, wavering breath. "That was until Aunt Walburga _crucioed _the lot of them. They never came back after that."_

_Iris said nothing. Instead, she wrapped her arms around the older woman's frail body and squeezed. Narcissa choked slightly and squeezed back, although her eyes did not leave the roughly polished stone sitting on top of a mound of dirt. Small, dying daisies lay on it. While it was dark now and difficult to read, the two of them knew the painstakingly carved letters by heart._

_Here lies Andromeda Tonks, daughter of House Black _

_Her soul lingers with the stars._

"_Does that epitaph apply to every House Black member?" Iris asked quietly._

"_It does indeed," Narcissa smiled. "We are all named after the stars."_

"_Where is Narcissa, then?" Iris asked, pointing upward the sky. Narcissa looked upward, and for a moment, in the light of the waning moon, she was almost as beautiful as she used to be, before the two of them were held and left to rot in one of Voldemort's prisons for months. It was only because they were disguised as mere Muggle-borns when they were captured that neither of them received… personal attention._

"_Not Narcissa," she said. "Narcissa Electra Black. Electra is up there." She frowned, and took a minute before pointing at a cluster of moderately bright stars. "One of the members of the Pleiades cluster. I've never been able to distinguish which, if I'm honest with you."_

"_I know where I am," Iris smirked and pointed easily to the north. Narcissa, despite her earlier misery, rolled her eyes and smiled slightly. _

"_Of course, Polaris," she drawled. "What a clever girl you are, being able to find the North Star so easily."_

"_Were you offended when they decided to give a Potter a Black name?" Iris asked curiously._

"_Mayhaps a little," Narcissa admitted. "But you deserve it. I realize that now." She looked up again, her eyes searching for her sister's soul, perhaps. "How fitting for you to be named after a star that historically guides people."_

"_Leading people to their deaths," Iris said darkly. "I never asked to be a leader. All I have ever been, is a soldier. A good one, but nothing more."_

"_People will follow you either way, Iris," Narcissa said gently. "Polaris doesn't care whether people use it for navigation, either. But it continues to shine brightly, unwavering and unmoving, and men will continue to look to it for guidance."_

"_I'm not a star so much as I'm a dark nebula," Iris snorted. Narcissa had no idea what a nebula was, so she couldn't argue back. "Hey, Cissy?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_How fast do you think light travels?"_

_She frowned. "Light?"_

"_Yes, light. How fast does it travel, do you think?" Iris stared at her. "How long do you think it takes for light from the sun to reach our eyes?"_

_Narcissa frowned. "I had no idea that light _travels_. But I'm going to guess, rather fast."_

"_Indeed. It travels at approximately one hundred-and-ninety thousand miles per second," Iris said, and Narcissa gaped. "Even traveling at that speed, light from the sun takes over eight minutes to reach the Earth." Iris pointed. "Alpha Centauri. Closest star system to our own. Do you know how far away it is?" Narcissa shook her head. "It's four lightyears away. Meaning, it takes four years, traveling nonstop at 190,000 miles per second, to get from there to here. And that's the closest star, aside from the sun." Narcissa stared at her._

"_Incredible," Narcissa whispered._

"_And Polaris, my namesake? That's over four-hundred lightyears away," Iris said to Narcissa's surprise. "And you'll find that many, many things are millions, possibly even billions of lightyears away. You know the most amazing part?"_

"_What is it?"_

"_The universe is expanding like a balloon, faster than the speed of light," Iris smiled. Narcissa stared at her, as Iris looked up to the sky. "There are so many places we could go," Iris said, much more quietly now. "So many other places we could be. Yet, we remain here, on this tiny blue marble, and we suffer."_

_Narcissa hugged Iris tightly. "Oh, Iris."_

_Iris and Narcissa began to trade stories. Stories about the stars. Narcissa was much better versed in mythology than Iris, so Narcissa took charge of telling the stories behind the constellations. Iris was better versed in astronomy, so she talked about quasars and black holes and the birth of the stars and planets and the universe itself._

_Iris envied Andie at the moment. She'd have eternity to explore the sky._

* * *

"Father?" Draco knocked on his father's office.

There was a startled scuffling noise and it was a while before Lucius Malfoy responded with a weary 'come in'. Draco opened the door to find his mother sitting in a chair and his father standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. Narcissa Malfoy's hair was down and messed up, as was his father's, though not to the same extent. Draco's cheeks started burning as he wondered if his parents were previously engaged in a moment of… intimacy.

"What is it?" Lucius asked.

"Oh, it's nothing… you both appeared to be distressed, so I, uh," Draco stammered under his father's hard stare. "I wanted to make certain you were both alright," he said meekly.

Narcissa finally turned around, slumped in her chair (something that the Lady Malfoy never did) and smiled tiredly at Draco. "Your concern is appreciated, Draco. But there's nothing you can do. Nothing I can do."

"What's wrong?"

"Have you been reading the Prophet lately, Draco?" Lucius asked softly. Draco nodded. "Then, you must already know of the entity known as 'Archangel'. Well, we have cause to believe that Archangel has infiltrated your mother's birthday party."

Draco's blood drained from his face. Lucius was now as afraid of this figure as he was of the Dark Lord himself. Draco had no idea why Lucius was so frightened since this Archangel figure had only appeared about two months ago. However, even Draco could not deny that Archangel possessed brutality that exceeded perhaps even that of the Dark Lord's. In the past two months, starting with Rabastan Lestrange, four high-profile Death Eaters of the previous war had been tortured and turned into a vegetable.

"I've already received numerous letters telling me to leave the country," Lucius said, palming his face wearily. "Some of them have been from paranoid allies. Others have been addressed by Archangel himself, though I suspect they're all fake." Lucius looked up. "If it were not for you and your mother, I would not be so worried about this figure. I can take pain. Neither of you would be able to."

"Father - you know I can," Draco said rather forcefully.

"Oh?" Lucius raised an eyebrow. "You would be able to function after being dunked in hydrofluoric acid, flayed using a magically sharpened butter-knife, tendons sown off to make puppet-strings, and in the case of Alecto Carrow, raped by the very horses that she raised and allowed to live on her farm before bleeding out to death."

Draco did not respond.

"This _Archangel_ is brutal and almost certainly insane. It would be a fate worse than death for either of you to be captured by him." Lucius smiled thinly. "And now we know, that is entirely possible. Observe."

Narcissa flinched slightly and Lucius placed a hand on her neck and pushed her hair up. Draco's stomach dropped as he saw, somehow, the number '6' tattooed onto Narcissa's nape. It wasn't very noticeable, even with her hair up, and could be easily concealed with a glamour. But the point was, someone had managed to ink that onto her skin without her noticing, or anyone else noticing, during the party.

"What…" Draco swallowed.

"What do we do? We've gotten recommendations from Archangel himself," Lucius said quietly, pulling out a folded letter from one of his pockets. "This too was slipped to me during the party, it appears. It says: '_It's a good thing I was an orphan too, and am not willing to turn your son into one. I suggest you and your family remove yourselves from V-_Voldemort'_s_ _area of influence as soon as possible. In doing so, you will be depriving him of a strategist, a large source of income, and you will not be executed by yours truly when I come to kill your master._'"

_Executed_. Such a strange word to use in this context, but nonetheless effective. Draco felt a shiver run down his spine at the final statement. It was not arrogant - it was so matter-of-fact that Draco almost believed it. From when he was a child he'd been hearing that the Dark Lord was the most powerful of all, but now he was worried. Very few people could have bypassed the attention of all of Malfoy Manor's wards, the newly acquired bodyguards, and finally Narcissa Malfoy herself.

Suddenly, Draco felt a pain in his chest. He yelped; his parents turned to face him, stood up with their wands at the ready, faster than Draco would have imagined them doing so. He knew both his parents had been regional duelling champions in their youth, and he could understand why, now. Lucius cast a plethora of detection spells, but none of them showed results. Despite this, Draco was almost certain they heard faint, female laughter. Narcissa visibly shuddered and closed her eyes, clutching her husband's free arm.

Draco clutched his chest, and realized there was something in his breast pocket that was surely not there before. His fingers shook as he withdrew a folded slip of parchment. Lucius quickly snatched it out of his son's hand and read it. "_You are now: TRYING TO ESCAPE VOLDEMORT. Would you like a hint for fifteen points?_"

"What?" Narcissa murmured. "Even if we were to take the hint, what do the points refer to and how do we know we have enough?"

"I'll take it," Lucius said firmly, to the protest of his wife. "My points, though, not Narcissa's or Draco's."

A moment later, the three jumped as a package fell from above with a loud _bang_. Immediately, Lucius cast five stunners in quick succession at the ceiling, but all it accomplished in doing was leaving five scorch marks on the masonry. He was breathing heavily, while Narcissa whimpered. Draco had _never_ heard his mother whimper. But he couldn't blame her; he was also terrified on a scale he'd never been before.

"Pippy!" Lucius roared with a rage that made the two other occupants flinch. A moment later, a house-elf _POP_ed into the room with her head cowed.

"Yes, Master Lucius?"

"I want this room warded against just about anything that it can be warded against," Lucius said quietly.

"Yes, Master Lucius," Pippy responded and put her hands up in the air. She frowned. "Something is disrupting my magic, Master Lucius."

"Can you tell us what is disrupting your magic, Pippy?" Narcissa asked before Lucius _really_ got angry.

Pippy closed her eyes. It might not look like anything to an observer, but house-elves were bound to the family they served and their ancestral home on a spiritual level. She was currently reaching out with her senses, trying to find something within the manor that was causing problems, but judging from her slowly changing expression, she was unsuccessful - or she was seeing something she didn't want to see.

"Pippy sees evil, Master Lucius," she spoke, voice trembling and higher-pitched than usual. Draco was shocked as a wave of magic washed over him; protective house-elf enchantments. For Pippy to do so without even being asked…

"What's going on?" Lucius hissed.

There was laughter. Faint, like last time, but definitely clearer.

_Just open the package, Lucius_.

The voice, which whistled through the manor like wind, sounded amused and Pippy was quaking as her master picked up the parcel. He tore it open aggressively to find documents. One of them was a French tourist's guide to Australia. There were three economy-class tickets from Heathrow to Sydney, whatever 'economy-class' meant. But none of this was truly important to Draco or Narcissa or Lucius. Their minds were occupied with the fact that there was _evil_ in the manor somewhere.

And it was playing with them.

"Is it you, Archangel?" Lucius shouted, his voice echoing through (_what should be_) the empty house. "Show yourself, coward!"

Silence.

"Answer me!" Lucius practically screamed, his wand glowing brightly with raw power. Draco felt tiny elf-arms clutch against his leg, but he did not try and chastise her as he normally would. He could see his mother's fingers digging into the flesh of his father's arm.

Soft laughter again. Carried by the wind. Like the voice of a goddess, but much more sinister. Like the voice of a _wraith_.

_Shall I show myself at the risk of your family's lives?_

Lucius did not answer that. He steadfastly ignored it, instead with trembling hands reading through the documents that were provided to him at the cost of _fifteen points_, whatever the _fuck _they were. Draco knew he wasn't reading, though; his eyes were twitching from place to place too violently, too disorderly, to be actually reading. It was like Lucius was trying his best to take in information but the inside of his mind was unable to detach itself from whatever it was focusing on.

The tickets were scheduled for 18:45 tomorrow evening. Three-quarters of a day until the scheduled flight would depart for _Terra Australis_. Just enough time, perhaps, to pack their most important belongings.

"Draco, Narcissa…" Lucius hesitated. He hated to abandon the battle like this. He'd not even had time enough to consider the merits and demerits of leaving. So much of his _life_ was located here. He stared at the slips of paper, just wondering what he should do…

_CHOOSE!_

The raging gust of wind that accompanied that word threatened to knock Lucius off his feet; indeed, Draco stumbled and his mother only remained upright for she was holding tightly onto her husband. Lucius' disheveled form looked towards every corner of the room, but finding no intruders, he retreated into sullen resignation.

"Very well," Lucius said quietly. "We'll leave for Sydney tomorrow. I will sort out any business I have with the goblins, and will purchase the best expanded trunks so we can fit as many of our things as possible."

Draco was washed over with a sudden sense of… relief, as it could only be described. The house elf, Pippy, opened her eyes and surveyed the room.

"It's gone," she said, with a bit of awe and a lot of relief. "The evil is gone, masters and miss."

Lucius trembled and dropped weakly onto the couch, staring off into nothingness. Draco had never seen his father so… weakened.

Then again, they hadn't encountered anything like this before. An invisble presence that crossed the family wards without any difficulty. One who'd infiltrated their party and somehow managed to get close enough to every individual family member to kill them, if they so wished. Undeniably insane and utterly cruel, yet somehow, more merciful than the Dark Lord would ever be to the Malfoy family.

Lucius Malfoy was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

* * *

Severus Snape was not having a good time. Not at all. If the Dark Lord was having a bad time, then it was guaranteed to be exponentially worse for his followers. Lucius Malfoy had not attended yesterday's Death Eater meeting. Severus was sent to investigate. He found Malfoy Manor crumbling, whatever remained of the masonry still burning with white-hot fiendfyre. It took himself and three other Inner Circle reinforcements to put out the cursed flames.

There was absolutely nothing left in the manor. Everything above-ground had turned into ash, glass or vapor. The hidden underground cellar was devoid of Lucius' collection of legally dubious objects, as they too had also burned. The only thing that remained was a large '6' produced with the mangled corpse of Narcissa Malfoy. Or that's what Severus assumed, based on the size of the body; the skin was melted off and only clumps of charred flesh stubbornly clinging to glassy bone was all that was left for identification.

Since the Azkaban incident where twelve senior Death Eaters were burned to death in a method similar to this, the Carrow siblings, Nott, and now Lucius Malfoy and his entire family had been decimated. Each time, their Gringotts vaults and their hidden stashes were pillaged. The Ministry, never in a position to cover anything up since the brutality was so noticeable, claimed that this was the work of Sirius Black.

That was absolutely ridiculous; Black was a muzzled dog and nothing more at this point. The only reason this theory had any credibility in the public was that the majority still believed Black was a psychopathic serial killer and also that Black was the only person so far to have been able to escape Azkaban undetected. No, to those with a high enough security clearance or to those with an alternate source of hushed news, this was the work of the so-called _Archangel_.

It was a force to be reckoned with.

Voldemort was not raging and hissing, cursing anyone unlucky enough to be in his immediate vicinity. He was sitting on his makeshift throne, Nagini curled up by the foot of the throne, with his fingers locked together. He was leaning back into the shadows, his face clouded save for his blood-red eyes, not saying a word, not moving a muscle.

This was somehow more frightening.

"Severus," he spoke quietly. "What kind of spells is this Archangel using, do you know?"

"I'm not certain, my Lord," Severus apologized, bowing. "Much of the magical residue is burned away from the fiendfyre that Archangel unleashes on his victims' abodes. However, when I discreetly examined Rabastan Lestrange…" Severus choked. "I discovered that Rabastan's consciousness was trapped in his own mind with no way out, which Archangel had turned into a torture chamber. While Lestrange will lay in St. Mungos until his heart finally fails, his mind is in constant agony with no way out save death."

Who was the stronger Legilimens, Voldemort or Archangel?

"He is a Legilimens, then," Voldemort said softly. "I had not gambled that a dimension traveler would so happen to be a powerful opponent to myself. If they did not oppose me so blatantly, I would be desperate to have them under my command."

The Death Eaters remained with their heads bowed. Even if a killing curse was sent their way, they wouldn't be able to see it, and they would die quickly, at least.

"What else do you know, Severus?" Voldemort asked. "Have any of our Death Eaters fought with him before dying? If so, what seems to be his combat style?"

"According to the information I gleaned in one Order meeting two months ago, Archangel is proficient at dual-wielding," Severus said. "It appears that Nott struggled briefly with Archangel before being killed, but very briefly indeed. I can only say that Archangel is powerful and that he prefers to capture his victims alive so he can torture them."

"Old-fashioned torture, too," Voldemort mused. "I use the Cruciatus if I feel a little sadistic. It's strange to think of a wizard using old-fashioned methods like pliers and knives."

Severus ground his teeth. Sick bastard - how was it possible for one to discuss _methods of being tortured to death_ like it were two schools of philosophy? If Archangel wasn't opposed to Voldemort, Severus could imagine the two chatting over a cup of tea their favorite ways of violating their victims, in front of a cozy fire in two leather armchairs with a Fenrir Greyback-shaped pelt rug underneath the ottomans.

"Our priority is hunting down this Archangel," Voldemort said finally. "I want them dead. Right now they are a bigger threat than Dumbledore or his ridiculous Order, the Order too cowardly to fight their battles. Archangel has no such problems and if we do nothing, we will continue to be picked off one by one. Arrange for portkeys to each others' houses so you can warp in as soon as one of our member is attacked."

Severus let out a breath of relief as he scraped another bow and turned to leave.

* * *

Tonks was sitting in a small cafe about two minutes walk from her flat, having brunch. She had been called in early yet again, so breakfast was out of the question. She wasn't entirely certain if she was able to eat anything after today's wonderful crime scene, but she needed her fill, considering she hadn't eaten the entirety of yesterday.

She recalled the crime scene. Everyone had been made to stare at the gruesome picture until their eyes started tearing up from not blinking enough, in an attempt to pin down _anything_ about Archangel. While Tonks did not mind the… permanent removal of certain members of society, the savagery exhibited frightened her. And this morning, Archangel had been bold enough to ambush Edward Goyle in the middle of Diagon alley with witnesses.

Bystanders, regardless of their affinity for troublemaking, had been in a state of shock that had forced the Aurors to escort them to St. Mungos to receive calming draughts before they were able to get testimonies. Their stories were more or less consistent; Goyle had flooed into the Leaky Cauldron and was walking down Diagon towards Knockturn Alley where his store was located, when a cloaked figure walked into him. The cloaked figure insulted Goyle, whereupon Goyle tried to intimidate the figure using his considerable girth.

After the stranger insulted Goyle's mother a few times, he predictably pulled out his wand and prepared to curse the stranger. However, the stranger was apparently wanting to start a fight the whole time, as she (the witnesses all believed the voice to be feminine) closed in and neutralized Goyle with Muggle dueling techniques. She then proceeded to break Goyle's limbs, then his fingers, one by one. When that was all done, she used Goyle's own wand to burn him to death. During which, she never ceased to taunt Goyle's stupidity and his allegiances. Then she apparated away to who-knew-where.

Well, the Aurors found out quickly enough; while they were examining Goyle's smoldering corpse, Archangel had visited Goyle's shop and painted a nice big '5' onto the storefront using fiendfyre, again. It was all the Aurors could do to contain the cursed fire, stop it from spreading to other buildings. Goyle's store, dealing with imported woodworks, burned like the tinder-shack that it was.

Fudge was terrified. His biggest donor, Lucius Malfoy, had been murdered. Ever since, he'd perceived all of this to be an attack on his political career. Really! How could the man be any more stupid? It wasn't even as if anyone _needed_ to attack his career - he was doing a good enough job digging his grave by himself. He'd declared this a state of emergency and sent all Aurors and Hit-Wizards out on patrol (while permanently reserving two Auror bodyguards for himself, of course).

Well, at least it took the heat off Dumbledore and Harry. The murders committed by Archangel managed to push Skeeter's heinous articles ('Harry Potter: Student, Hero, Archangel?') to the second page of the Prophet and even sometimes to the third or fourth. The emergency declaration and law enforcement patrols meant there were fewer opportunities for Death Eater attacks, as well.

Tonks thanked the waitress as she received her smoked salmon-and-asparagus omelette. She took a bite. It was good, but Merlin, it was heavy for someone who hadn't eaten for some time. As she sipped her coffee, she sorely wished it was alcoholic.

She was snapped out of her reverie when a young redheaded woman sat down in front of her. "Hey, Dora!" She greeted cheerfully, with a bright smile.

She was cute, and her sparkling green-eyes were very memorable indeed. All in all, she was not a forgettable person. Which was why Tonks was immediately suspicious when this woman picked _her_ table of all the empty tables in the cafe and somehow knew one of her many nicknames, created in an attempt to discourage people from using her real name. Tonks palmed her wand under the table.

"Who are you?" Tonks growled.

She did not seem at all threatened. "Come on, Nymmie." She leaned in with a dark smile, making Tonks pause. "_Surely you remember me_."

And she did.

Her brain cried out in confusion as a previously locked part of her mind suddenly burst open, previously dammed information being released into her train of thought. Tonks' eyes widened as she remembered a redheaded woman being chased by an Unspeakable, brushing off her and Kingsley like mere ants before an elephant. The raven-haired woman at the Imperial War Museum, who strolled through the defenses in her mind like it was a walk in the park. Who had not destroyed, but in fact hidden the memories of their encounters with the surgical precision of a neurosurgeon.

"You!" Tonks hissed, preparing to cast the most powerful stunning spell she could. However, her entire body was frozen before she could do so. While wordless casting was easy for her, not being able to make even the barest hint of wand movements made performing magic extremely difficult.

The woman had not moved except to point her index finger in Tonks' direction. Wandless magic. Merlin-damned wandless magic.

"Just a _petrificus totalus_, you understand," she said. "You were about to hex me, weren't you? It's technically self-defense."

Tonks said nothing. Mostly because she couldn't.

"I wanted to speak to you," the young woman said softly. She sighed. "I missed you."

Tonks could feel everything above her neck loosening. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"The Nymphadora I knew died," she said flatly. "By the Dark Lord's hand, no less."

"What - what are you talking about?" Tonks said, squirming. "Please. Let me go."

"I fell out of the Veil, I'm pretty sure," she said dryly. She flicked her finger at Tonks again and suddenly she could move. "What makes you think-"

Tonks stood up and whipped her wand around in an arc, charging her magical energy at the tip, preparing to blast the woman to oblivion. Tonks' magic roared as it hurtled from point blank towards Archangel.

However, Archangel only raised her left hand and blocked Tonks' strike with a shield she conjured over her arm. The impact blasted a sharp gust of wind outwards and with a sound like a tower bell being struck. Tonks' body was frozen again, and the woman stood up. Tonks briefly noticed that, even with their hair all ruined, the Muggles didn't notice.

"The mother of all notice-me-nots," Archangel grinned wryly. "Useful for when you get attacked by overzealous Aurors."

"How else am I supposed to act to a sick murderer?" Tonks growled.

"You could act with gratitude," she shrugged. "For cleaning up the trash of your society."

"You torture people for the hell of it," Tonks hissed. She cursed her metamorphmagus abilities for betraying her fear. The spell on her kept her from shivering in terror, but it didn't extend to the paling of her hair.

"An eye for an eye," Archangel smiled thinly. "Why don't we talk somewhere else? Like two grown adults. I'm not going to hurt you, Nymphadora." Tonks growled. "Oh, grow up. I think it's a lovely name, anyway. Anyway, I promise I won't hurt you. At least because you were so kind to me in my old world, if nothing else."

On one hand, Tonks was terrified and wanted to get the hell out of there. On the other hand, this might be the first chance that either the Order or the Aurors had an opportunity to interact with the mysterious Archangel. She'd been in plenty of scary situations before. She steeled herself and allowed herself to give into her 'overzealous' nature as Archangel had described it.

"Fine, let's talk," Tonks decided.

"Wonderful," Archangel smiled, seemingly a genuine smile, and clapped her hands together. Tonks stumbled slightly as the petrification spell was canceled. "Please don't attack me, and I'll return the courtesy," she said quietly.

Tonks shivered as she locked eyes with brilliant, yet deathly green irises.

"I won't attack you so long as you don't attack me," Tonks said warily. "Witch's oath?"

Archangel smiled. "If you so require."

After they spoke their respective oaths, Archangel claimed she knew of a place where they could speak in private. Tonks was definitely wary about allowing herself to be apparated by the wizarding society's most recent supervillain, but she gave in to it. When she landed in front of her own flat, however, she could only glare at the giggling young woman.


	6. Chapter 6

_Death._

* * *

_Valkyrie clutched eleven inches of Phoenix and holly in her right hand, while her left hand held five inches of cold Beretta steel. She was clad in magically reinforced armor, a mixture of the most modern carbon nanotube fabrics and dragon leather, stitched in with more runes than one could count (and could see with the naked eye). Beside her, codename Mystique sat in similar armor, wearing the magical body-suit, cloak, hood and visor, all of it black or a very dark blue._

_Aside from Mystique, there were eight others in the passenger cabin; Hyperion, Dragon, Morgana, Odin, Providence, as well as three wardbreakers. Valkyrie couldn't see their faces, as encased in shadow and armor as they were. She wanted to know if the rest of the Special Operations Unit were as nervous as her. Knowing the crazy fuckers in the Unit, perhaps not; the only telltale sign of nervousness was Dragon's fidgeting, and he was the newest recruit._

_Valkyrie looked out of the cabin and saw a ruined landscape. The Plymouth region was a mess, having been the target of artillery bombardments, as the Dark Lord's final stronghold. Mortars had blown holes into buildings, the rare ones that remained standing. Valkyrie could see a few flashes of spellfire and the echoes of gunfire; the struggle was almost constant in this region. At least it had fared better than central London; an IRA explosives expert had managed to recreate a 'dirty' nuclear bomb with the assistance of the Death Eaters, which went off and leveled everything in a half-mile radius and then severely damaged everything within one more mile. _

_They coasted over the crumbling maze of steel and concrete just high enough that the mild thrumming of the Huey and the Apache would not be detected by lookouts on the ground. The heavily modified helicopters were muffled, disillusioned, and minimized how much heat the engine produced, so to prevent unexpected assaults from infrared surface-to-air missiles. _

"_We're going to descend," the co-pilot of the Huey, a battle-hardened Muggleborn, spoke to them. "Wardbreakers, this is your stop. You have four minutes to take down the anti-personnel wards and put up the anti-teleportation matrix."_

_The helicopter slowly descended until it was grazing the street and the three wardbreakers shared one desperate glance with the SOU - which were promptly ignored - before they hopped off. The helicopter quickly ascended to the Apache again, which had begun to circle the massive ward scheme that undoubtedly hid Voldemort and his top lieutenants. It covered a complex about the size of a shopping center. In fact, it probably had been one, before, and had now turned into a barracks of some sort._

_After one minute, Providence was dropped about five hundred meters from the target on the rooftop of a mostly stable apartment block. He shouldered his magically silenced L96A1 and hopped off the edge of the helicopter, deftly rolling on the concrete three meters below. He gave a thumbs-up to indicate everything was fine, and Valkyrie saw him, as he shrunk into the distance, prop up his sniper rifle on the edge of the building and go through his checks._

_The remaining three minutes passed in agonizing silence. Throughout, Valkyrie and the other operatives etched the image into their minds as a sculptor would with a chisel and a hammer, and noted entry points and possible traps, thoroughly putting to use the observational skills they'd been drilled in by Mad-Eye Moody until they became second nature. After the four minutes, a single red flare erupted from the ground and sizzled in the waning light for all to see._

_The Apache turned around and let loose._

_The newly set up anti-teleportation matrix would not be affected, since it only blocked magical movement. The main target of the assault was the heavy kinetic barriers that Voldemort put up, likely after predicting that this very sort of full-scale assault might occur. However, no matter how formidable Voldemort might be, he had designed the wards to counter against magical attacks like the explosive curse, and furthermore stretched the ward over a large area. He might have prepared for a squad of top Aurors to assault his shields, but he had clearly not had eight screaming Hellfire missiles in mind when he set up these barriers._

_The barriers collapsed after the first three missiles, leaving the other five to raze the southern quarter of this former shopping center. Valkyrie watched in grim satisfaction, imagining the Death Eaters running scared shitless as they realized they couldn't apparate out of there to escape the fire and brimstone. As soon as the dust raised from the Hellfires settled, the Apache began unloading all of its Hydra-70 rockets with deadly precision, taking out crucial structural support with four and a half pounds of high explosive._

_When the last of the rockets whistled through the air, the Huey went into a steep dive, pushing through the newly set up anti-teleportation network. Valkyrie clutched at the nearest handholds as the hidden helicopter went into a ridiculous but undeniably very fast maneuver in an attempt to land them inside the compound before the Death Eaters gathered their wits again. It eventually forced itself back into a hover, the engine whining with effort, and Valkyrie quickly jumped off the vehicle from a height of about four meters. _

_She felt the shock of the landing running through her legs before she rolled. Beside her, Mystique and Hyperion landed, doing the same, while the other three had jumped from the other side of the vehicle. She could make out the faint outlines of the disillusioned aircraft ascending again. She and her team rushed toward one of the two remaining exits, the other of which the Apache was already covering from an angle, as the thunder of the machineguns roared over the occasional crackling of fire and the sound of architecture crumbling._

_Valkyrie ran, jumping over a pitifully moaning Death Eater half trapped under tons of concrete. If there were any threats to her wellbeing, such as the Death Eater who was missing both legs but still carried their wand in their hand, she shot them. _

_They encountered brief resistance at the only remaining entrance of the compound. Hyperion weaved his considerable size effortlessly between several bone-breakers sent his way. As Valkyrie replied in kind, she could hear more echoes of gunfire; the SAS squadron they'd partnered with were now surrounding the perimeter to prevent escape. _

_Valkyrie ducked under a sickly violet spell and popped back up, only to be staring at another one as it flew on its way. A shield materialized in front of her and she glanced behind her, where Dragon was pointing his wand at her. She nodded quickly in thanks before moving again. She, Hyperion and Morgana led the charge into what remained of the compound. She heard the staccato of automatic weapons and a few feet away from Hyperion, a Death Eater was blown to the ground without ceremony._

_Morgana led the way with a high-powered _stupefy_, a variant that covered a large area of effect. Using some sort of kinetic spell like _bombarda _was not a good idea when the building was crumbling as it was. Morgana jumped into the building without hesitation, followed by Hyperion and Valkyrie herself. Behind her, the other three also jumped through, though only after confirming they wouldn't be flanked and putting up a rough Dark Mark-denial ward._

_The six operatives charged through the labyrinth of fallen concrete and broken magic, never stopping except on the rare occasions where magical traps or wards had remained intact after the barrage. They tore through ranks of Death Eaters using coordinated attacks, ripping a hole in their shields and quickly dismantling them from there. It also helped that they were much more experienced with melee combat compared to the Death Eaters, since they were trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare of a warzone. _

_Really, the main downfall of the Death Eater movement was their ridiculous pride and arrogance. Valkyrie firmly planted her combat knife into the eye-slit of a silver Death Eater mask, whereupon its owner fell to the ground, his brain scrambled inside his skull. It was their pride that prevented them from learning about so-called 'Muggle dueling' techniques, and their pride that prevented them from Muggle anti-government paramilitaries such as those from the IRA until it was all too late and Her Majesty's Regiment had the upper hand. _

_Valkyrie drew up her pistol and pumped two rounds, cutting off a half-spoken curse, and after sharing a glance with Hyperion and Morgana, charged through. After a few more fights with Death Eaters, the three of them switched places with Mystique, Odin and Dragon, to conserve their own magic where possible. The grunts were therefore handled by the other three while Morgana, Hyperion and Valkyrie followed, occasionally downing pepper-up potions and reloading their handguns._

_After about ten minutes of struggle and a grand total of twenty-six enemy fatalities, they arrived at a heavily fortified panic room. The heavy, steel door was covered in numerous dark wards that would undoubtedly peel their skin off or turn their blood into smoothie or something ridiculously diabolical. The operatives nodded to each other after taking a moment to survey the wards. Then, they attached plenty of plastic explosive around the door and hid behind two layers of concrete as it was detonated._

_When they returned, the two-feet thick concrete wall was fragile enough to be destroyed with explosive curses. The thick, steel door deafened them as it crashed into the ground; the operatives stepped through, taking care not to place their feet directly on top of the felled door, examining the room. They had about a dozen wands pointed at them, belonging to Voldemort's most powerful lieutenants, and Voldemort's own._

"_You dare," Voldemort hissed, rage obvious even through his snake-ish face. "You think you can defeat me?"_

_No witty comebacks, no casual banter. The six members gave a quick flick of their wands. Six quickly spoken, simultaneous '_Avada Kedavra' _led to five Death Eater bodies landing on the ground with a dull thud. The last had managed to dodge the sickly green beam that splashed on the wall, leaving behind a circle of rapidly corroding concrete._

_Voldemort screamed in rage as he retaliated with death curses of his own. The six fanned out, quickly decapitating or lethally maiming their enemies. Valkyrie saw Odin push one Death Eater into the way of an oncoming AK. Valkyrie ducked under the wand of her own opponent and stood up, the crown of her skull crashing into their jaw. Valkyrie stifled a hiss; her opponent's mask would have undoubtedly cut her head open if not for her dragonhide clothing. She used the moment in which the Death Eater was stunned to press the still-warm barrel of her Beretta under the soft part of the man's jaw and blew his face and frontal lobe into the ceiling._

"_I am _Lord Voldemort_!" The Dark Lord howled. "You will kneel before me and I will have your heads!"_

_Valkyrie sincerely wanted to mock him but she knew the drill. Any moron caught monologuing, bragging, or bantering with the enemy in the heat of battle would be forced to run around the training compound naked until their feet bled and they either threw up or lost consciousness. Many Dark Lords had an ego trumping their common sense, which led to mistakes. The Special Operations Unit would make no such mistakes. Even when under intense mental and emotional pressure - like now._

_She watched her best friend, Mystique, get caught with an Entrail-expelling curse. Valkyrie's mind was screaming, her head filled with meaningless white noise, and she could feel time slow to a crawl as the once beautiful, curvaceous figure (which she shamelessly ogled in the changing rooms) slowly toppled, but the effects of inertia left her guts suspended for a brief moment until they followed its owner to the ground. She wanted to rush to Mystique's side. But she was conditioned too well._

_Valkyrie dodged behind some rubble as a Death Curse came flying their way. She watched Morgana execute the killer of Mystique in her favorite method; she cast a sticking charm that formed between her victim's face and mask, then cast an overpowered _Accio _at the mask such that one could hear the skin literally ripping off the skull of the victim before their screams drowned everything out. Even Voldemort looked surprised as a now unidentifiable Death Eater clutched at his bloody face, gibbering incoherently until Morgana saw fit to blow a 9mm-wide hole in his head._

_The five remaining operatives smoothly raised their firearms in unison at Voldemort and emptied their clips._

_Bullets crashed and fell to the floor as they crashed into Voldemort's shield. Voldemort screamed and struck back with the ferocity of someone who was cornered and had no escape except to kill his way out. Even outnumbered five-to-one by a group specifically engineered to kill off Dark Lords like this one, Voldemort was pushing them._

_Voldemort decided he would take out all of them as quickly as he could, and cast Fiendfyre. Hyperion, the most magically powerful of the group, retaliated by summoning forth cursed ice, through a spell obscure enough that it didn't have any official name and powerful enough that it was able to counteract Fiendfyre, for a time. A basilisk-shaped mass of white-hot flame reared its head and screeched, preparing to strike; in retaliation, Hyperion's gigantic Mûmakil (he really was one for dramatics) roared its defiance. The flame came crashing down and the frost golem used its four tusks to lock it in place. _

_Voldemort's vertically-slit eyes were bugging out by now, and his shield, no longer being attended, crashed down in a matter of moments under bombardment from the other four. Voldemort howled in rage, losing control of his cursed fire as he was struck with multiple body-bind charms. Hyperion struggled against the now out-of-control flames, his Oliphaunt struggling against the intense heat._

_Valkyrie crossed the chamber in several powerful leaps before crashing into Voldemort. She tore off her mask, the one that separated Valkyrie from Iris Potter, and hissed in his face. Voldemort's eyes widened as he recognized the lightning-bolt scar and the enraged green eyes. _

"_You've lost _everything_," Iris whispered. "Your followers, your ideology… and your conviction. You pitched your power against ours, and you weren't enough. You've lost, Tom."_

_Voldemort's screech of rage and fear was cut short by a single green curse._

_Having lost its biggest source of magical fuel, the flaming basilisk withered and was quickly subdued by Hyperion's beast. That too quickly crumbled into nothingness as Hyperion collapsed from magical exhaustion. Valkyrie stumbled away, dazed, and crashed into Dragon's arms. Dragon also removed his mask, revealing the pale, scarred face of Draco Malfoy._

"_You alright?" He asked, concerned. Their mission was over, and most, if not all, the Death Eaters should be dead at this point. Morgana kept watch just in case, as Odin was busy checking Hyperion._

"_M'fine," Iris mumbled. "Dora…"_

_Draco helped Iris stumble over to Mystique, whereupon she removed the mask that contained - or used to, anyway - Nymphadora Tonks. Her face was pale, having been drained of blood, and the guts that had spilled out of her body stunk of shit. On the floor nearby, there were four bloody lines painted by her slick red fingers, showing that she probably struggled for a bit before dying. As long as Iris had known war, she could never get over how… how quick and unexpected one's death could be. No chance to exchange last words._

"_Nymphadora," Iris urged quietly. "Please come back."_

_Nymphadora didn't respond._

_Iris sighed and closed her former best friend's eyes. She pulled out a small object from her toolbag which, with a tap of her wand, enlarged into a stretcher. She rolled Dora's stiff body onto it, relieved the corpse of her wand, gun, ammo, and jewelry, before magicking the stretcher outside. Once Morgana and Odin saw she was done, they followed her out. Voldemort's body was mangled by some falling concrete, leaving only the reptilian skin of his undamaged hand visible._

_However, nobody realized the Elder Wand, which should have by all means remained clutched tightly in Voldemort's stiff claws, had disappeared._

* * *

Tonks did not enjoy turning her back to a potential assailant, but she couldn't make tea without the use of her eyes. So she grudgingly turned her back (Mad-Eye would be furious) and made the two of them tea. Goodness knew she needed it.

Once the liquid was the color of amber, Tonks plucked out the teabags, threw them out, and carefully levitated the steaming mugs towards the table. The girl, Archangel, sat cross-legged on the cheap sofa. She grinned, forming dimples on her cheeks, and brushed her autumn-colored hair out of the way as she sipped at her mug.

Tonks lowered her eyes to the girl's hands, clutching the mug. Her mannerisms seemed extremely normal; the way she tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she held the mug in two hands, the way she seemed to wear a slight smile while deep in thought; all of these screamed _unremarkable_ to her, even girlish. If Tonks had not seen her power - and had not seen her un-glamoured form in her mind - she might even consider Archangel to be a rather normal teenage girl.

But she wasn't.

Tonks forced her Occlumency shields up to 120%, clamping down on her emotions so hard that she may as well be an android at this point. She wasn't going to have yet another repeat performance of getting so scared that her hair literally turned white. Only with absolute surety and coldness did she look up to meet the Archangel's eyes.

The cold green eyes glittered back.

"Who the hell are you?" Tonks asked, her Occlumency dropping her voice below zero and shocking herself, even through the very shields that caused this uncharacteristic chill.

"I'm Iris," the girl said, smirking nonchalantly.

The two stared each other down in a battle of wills; Tonks, with her completely unemotional face trying to find any measure of information about her opponent, while this so-called Iris sat there with a slight smile that betrayed no discomfort or awkwardness - although she probably hadn't blinked once. Tonks stared straight into her. Iris didn't seem to care.

"What is your relationship with me?" Tonks asked.

"Co-worker. Also, a romantic partner, as brief as that was," Iris said.

Tonks was not exactly a veteran of the force. She'd only graduated from the Auror Academy a few years ago. However, she had graduated from the academy with top marks, and she'd proven herself a capable Auror time and time again. She wasn't about to be one-upped by some brat that fell through the veil.

"What is your purpose in coming here?" Tonks said. "Why did you come to this world?"

"I don't know," Iris replied. For the first time, Tonks detected a foreign emotion in her tone that was not amusement; a hint of irritation and confusion. "I don't know how I got here, though I'm not complaining. It wasn't exactly la-la land where I came from."

Oh, Tonks was sure. She'd only gotten a glimpse of the woman's real form, when her mind had been invaded, but it had been enough. Scars, years-old and days-new, some easily healed and others deep enough to have been near-fatal. Tonks still didn't even want to _consider_ how Iris had managed to get that ugly, ring-shaped scar across her throat and toward the back of her neck.

"And what have you been doing once you realized you were in a different world?" Tonks asked.

Iris shrugged. "Running. Hiding. Stealing. Why do you ask?"

As if Tonks was going to answer that. She may as well go out and say, 'oh, I'm just gathering intelligence for the Auror squad and Dumbledore, both of whom would very much like to see you in Azkaban.'

"I understand my life seems rather interesting to you now, but I assure you it's rather bleak," Iris said, sipping more of her tea.

"Why did you choose to come speak to me?" Tonks asked, one of the questions that burned brightest in her mind.

Iris smiled, a small smile that was genuine but didn't contain much happiness; full of melancholy and regret and pain. "I wanted to see you again. We used to be close."

Tonks continued to watch her face for any trace of falsehood, but she found none, for now. The woman had known her before, and they had been close, and they were close enough for this seemingly psychopathic killer to suffer greatly for it. Even now, excluding moments where she gave that mocking smirk, she struggled to meet Tonks' eyes and converse properly.

"Why don't you show me a memory of us?" Some emotion crept through Tonks' now slightly relaxed Occlumency barriers. "It'd be easier for me to trust you that way."

Iris hesitated. Tonks knew it was an unreasonable request, and she wanted mostly to see how Iris would react. Would she come up with a real reason why, or would she come up with an excuse?

"Do you have a pensieve?" She finally asked, and Tonks was surprised.

"I reckon Dumbledore would lend me his if I asked," Tonks said thoughtfully. Then she smiled hesitantly. "What are you going to show me?"

"The time we went to the beach together," Iris grinned.

Tonks pushed down the rising guilt in her stomach. She had no intention of being buddy-buddy with a killer who seemed to have no remorse. It was clear this woman, despite being an adept of legilimency, had no idea that Tonks didn't feel comfortable being here at all. She was like a puppy, giving Tonks unconditional love, even though Tonks didn't want to return it because she was less of a puppy and more of a Xenomorph from that terrifying movie her dad tricked her into watching.

Tonks smiled, hoping it didn't look too much like a grimace. This girl was terrifying and was the worst person to have a crush on Tonks, but she needed to pull through. If Tonks did nothing now, Harry and Headmaster Dumbledore would continue to be vilified by the press and government, Voldemort would build up his army, and hamstrung Auror Department would not be able to stop his resurrection.

Tonks sipped her tea, only to find it tasted like ash.

* * *

Iris was many things. She was the _Devil of the Thames_ \- particularly proud of that one, actually - the Butcher. She was of questionable sanity, a serial killer, she was bisexual, she was often quite forgetful, a spy, an assassin, a thug, a poor student, a rebel, an outcast. But an idiot was not one of them.

Tonks was staring at Iris' forehead the entire time and she did not really think it was a conscious move on Tonks' part to avoid legilimency. Tonks occasionally couldn't keep her disgusted expression in when she did not think Iris was paying attention or when she hid half her face behind her mug. She sounded friendly enough, but there was always that undertone of fear.

Iris…

She wasn't what she used to be.

Not the bright-eyed child who'd discovered magic for the first time and tried to devour the entire Hogwarts library in her first and second years. Not the champion of light that Dumbledore was grooming her to be. She was not the shy girl who had a crush on Oliver Wood when she joined the Quidditch team in first year and thought she had a crush on Katie Bell in third year but didn't quite know. She was not the girl who got angry on her friends' behalf on even the tiniest offenses from Malfoy. She was not the girl who hated every Slytherin and glorified every Gryffindor and appeal to her friends' senses of right and wrong.

She was also not the girl who'd given in to her dark desires. She was not the girl who cracked under pressure and delved into dark magic. She was not the girl who needed Dumbledore's support, Remus' support, the girl who needed Tonks to hold her while she slept so she didn't have nightmares. She wasn't the girl who needed their sympathy and their aid.

What she _was_, was the girl who manipulated people and didn't really care for the consequences. The girl who went out of her way to appease her dark desires, who went out of her way to hurt people even if it were both a waste of her time and energy. She was the girl who'd willingly gone too far, abandoned her own morals and justifying it by saying that she lived in a different, post-apocalyptic world now. She had gone from Fonda to Frank and there was no turning away.

Would she ever be able to reconnect with her friends? With Tonks? With Sirius? With Hermione?

It was as she was walking from Tonks' flat, wondering what it would be like to get some cheesecake for the first time in however many years, that she was realized something was off.

* * *

Pierce Montgomery had never seen anything like this in his career, anything like this in his bloody _life_.

The militant side of the Unspeakables was equipped to deal with very specific threats, often of an unknown nature. Supernatural threats, such as malicious poltergeists that made Peeves look like a golden retriever, old gods come to reclaim their kingdoms, and acted as emissaries whenever higher order beings came to visit.

In all of these situations, the nine-man team he had under his command were well-equipped to deal with them. Eight fighters, one medic, and one cursebreaker. They were more than knowledgeable and all of them had graduated the Auror academies at the top of their cohorts. So when the Magical Forensics department finally managed to pin down the apparition signatures of the unknown who killed Goyle in broad daylight and went away, the Unspeakables were sent in.

Laid in front of him was a large sheet of parchment, outlining the criss-cross of streets, as well as other basic topographical features. Nine sets of footprints spread out as they got into position. This was the gem of the Unspeakables - the idea, secretly stolen from the infamous Marauder's Map (why use such an invention for something so juvenile as _pranks_?), was used to develop a very accurate map able to display to movements of their agents, and the map was capable of zooming in and out of every nook and cranny of Britain.

And their prized map was now showing an oozing, inky blackness in the middle of one street.

They weren't really able to pin down the movements of anyone who wasn't keyed into the map. Instead, they would appear as a 'cloud' of magical residue, which was why their target showed up as something akin to spilled ink. But in this case… it was so black, so dark, that it felt blacker than the ink used to make the map in the first place. It was a telltale sign of dark magic, and danger.

Montgomery watched one of his men be quickly flanked by this threat. The black tendrils reached out to the silhouettes of his footsteps, and-

* * *

Milo Farbes crept out from behind the corner, and his quick glance told him nobody was there. He took a closer look, cataloging every detail he could spot, and turned the corner. This dimension-traveler had given them a lot of trouble over the past few months, but the brutal string of murders would finally end and peace - or at least, as much of it they could get - would return to Magical Britain.

He was too late when he decided to give any thought to the burning sensation in his back. He paused, turned around, and stared into the most brilliant green eyes he'd ever seen until his field of vision was dominated by a flash of sickly blue.

* * *

'Milo Forbes' disappeared from the map. Montgomery's coffee mug shook in his fingers.

* * *

Richard Bonds and James Bulstrode rushed towards the source of the sound, whatever it was. If their dreaded suspicions were confirmed, the sound of one of their allies' bodies hitting the ground. If it had been the target, there would have been a signal sent up by now.

Richard raised a shield while James gathered a powerful stunner at wandtip. They turned the corner and immediately, the former's shield was assaulted by a powerful concussion curse, shattering it. James unleashed his stunner, only to be deflected by a small but dense shield that the enemy used to angle away the red bolt.

The two agents began dueling in tandem, but the target, somehow, was too powerful for them. And too fast. She only blocked about a tenth of the spells that came screaming at her, the other nine, she'd dodge with minimal effort. Somehow, the small figure looked like a massive predator when it came rushing at the two of them. She held out her left hand in front of her and somehow used wandless magic to block any incoming spells, while she gathered power in the wand in her right hand.

In that moment, James wished he hadn't argued with his mother the day before.

Richard felt oddly calm as a wave of pulsing green washed over them.

* * *

Two more agents disappeared from the map. Montgomery somehow didn't think that his agents had apparated to safety.

* * *

Stephen Crebain paused in front of the corpse of his dead comrade, feeling sick. Everything appeared to be fine, except the neck up, which was either a bloody fountain or a gory mess. Probably got hit in the face with an explosive curse of some sort.

He pocketed the man's wand. It would be of little comfort to the family they'd send it to, but it was better than trying to give them a glimpse of the body. He felt rage, but also desperation. They were an elite team, trained specifically to handle extra-powerful threats. They were being culled with so little effort on the enemy's part that they may as well be sitting ducks.

He'd seen all eight corpses of all eight coworkers, now.

Stephen paused. Then he turned around. As soon as he caught a glimpse of that black outfit, he sent a powerful banishing hex at it. The figure crossed their arms to block the force, and cars parked nearby wailed in alarm as they were sent skidding several feet out of position or rolled over. Stephen fuelled his spells with rage and hate, but it didn't seem to help. The figure, smaller than he'd first thought, sent a Jeep flying at him.

Stephen cursed, only able to deflect the angle that the vehicle was flying in. How did this _thing_ become so powerful? He didn't think he'd be able to keep up for long, and he wasn't naive enough to think any sort of last stand-esque spell would be able to stop the monster in its tracks.

He raised a dust storm and used to cover to sprint away as fast as he could, randomly shooting spells behind him to keep them occupied. He jumped behind a corner and continued to run until his breath gave way and he collapsed onto the sidewalk with shaking knees. He panted, barely able to keep himself sitting up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Stephen looked up in panic, only to see an armor-clad knee swinging up at his chin; pain flared through his jaw as he was tossed backward from the sheer force of the attack. He fumbled his wand only for his assailant to stomp on his wrist hard enough to break it; he grunted, but his fingers no longer felt like they were under his control to make wand movements.

"So, agent," the figure crouched down, keeping him pinned. Stephen fought not to shiver. "You're going to tell me everything you know."

* * *

Montgomery threw his coffee mug in as eight footsteps blinked out of the map and the blackness disappeared. He breathed hard, watching the dark liquid trickle down the wall. His hands shook. Not from rage, but from fear.

There was a monster walking through the streets - the same streets that he walked to work, the same streets his wife walked to go shopping, the same streets his daughters occasionally played in. And it was stronger than any fighters the Unspeakables could produce.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?


	7. Chapter 7

_DEATH_.

* * *

_Where the fuck am I?_

_The last thing she remembered was being hoisted up on a noose onto a tree, struggling against the rope even as it burned her throat. The way she suffered for four days with no nourishment except occasionally being splashed with wastewater. Even as her toes and fingers blackened and died on the coldest nights, where she couldn't sleep, _must not _sleep, for she would never wake up otherwise… _

_There was no sensation of warmth or cold. Even within a dream, Iris could feel pain or cold - well, at least her brain could be tricked into feeling those things. Right now she felt nothing, utterly nothing, like her entire body had been covered in third-degree burns, like all of her nervous system had shorted out, not just on the surface but inside as well, her organs seemingly nonexistent and even her brain - although somehow, she remained conscious._

_There was no light, no darkness. Only the void, nonexistent yet somehow endless. Stretching out into nothingness, despite the fact that it was nothingness in the first place. All-consuming, though there is nothing to consume._

_In the nothing, there was _something_._

_Iris could… feel it. Couldn't see it, hear it, but the very soul cried out as it felt the tendrils of energy approach. A nonsensical mass and shape, existing yet not existing, nowhere yet everywhere, formless yet certain. It was a sensation that felt familiar to her, like she should recognize it. _

What are you?

_The question was not vocalized. Iris didn't have a vocal structure to voice it. Or so she thought. Maybe she did but she couldn't hear anything. The question, it felt, came out as a myriad of emotions. Her confusion, her fear, her anxiety, all reverberating in the wall-less caverns of nothingness, a desperate plea from this neverending, never-beginning, shapeless, timeless, lifeless hell._

I am Death.

_Iris gasped as she was assaulted by memories. Memories that weren't hers, yet simultaneously were. She and Death… they'd been intertwined by fate for a very long time. Iris marveled at the memories. A kaleidoscopic rainbow of color, bursting into every direction like a flare in the night sky, the birth of the universe… and her. Her and Death. _

_So many colors she'd never even seen, couldn't even describe, like trying to describe 'red' or 'blue' to a man with no eyes, like trying to describe the vastness of the universe to any single individual who could only gaze up at the sky, wondering if there was anyone else out there, thinking the same thing as they, wondering if they too were thinking about the beautiful - but how large? - universe._

_She watched the colors explode or fade away, gamma-ray bursts destroying everything around it, as a sacrifice to a goddess of beauty perhaps. Civilizations rose and fell in a blink of an eye - yet the dreams of the individuals never seemed to die, lingering far after their bodies crumbled and even their souls were swept away by cosmic wind._

_The bright colors faded, pulled far apart from each other such that they would never be able to reach each other again, dying in solitude, the colors fading. The last star would flash out in an unspectacular, depressing manner, and even the entities that really only partially existed would fade away, and the universe would dim into a heat death, into a void forever…_

_Iris tentatively reached out to Death_.

Is this what the end looks like? _Iris questioned hesitantly._ Are we in what used to be the universe?

We are, _Death agreed_. The last of any existing thing has dissolved into nothingness. But we are not in, or out of, anything. We simply… are.

And why am I here? Am I dead?

Death is merely destruction of your physical vessel, _Death answered. _So technically, you are dead. But death is not nonexistence. We are two of few entities that have been permitted to move through the currents of 'time' by the Powers that Be.

But there is no time here. Not anymore.

You are correct.

_Iris didn't know what to think. Why was she summoned here? Death had not answered that question. And what was her purpose now? Did she ever have a purpose? Did she ever have a free will? For that matter, did anything ever move on its own volition? Were dreams dreamed by the greatest men, the desire to explore and create, were they simply tools of brainwashing by the Powers that Be, into thinking men had free will?_

You… are an anomaly, child. _Death spoke hesitantly._ All beings are predictable to some extent. They have free will. They do as they wish, but the universe can cater to some measure of unpredictability - that measure is enough for most beings. But not you. You, child, are truly and inexorably incalculable.

What does that mean?

You have enormous potential within you. The choices you make could have had incredible effects on the universe. If you'd killed the Dark Lord at the graveyard, you might have become the ruler of all magical beings, bringing about great political change and massive advancements in technology. Perhaps thousands or millions of years after that, a united humanity may have traveled across the universe with magic and science hand in hand, and in the process deleted a budding species that was destined to prevent a supernova from wiping out trillions of life forms. If you'd chosen to become a Dark Lady, you may have succeeded in wiping out humanity with a nuclear war - leading to the survival of a spacefaring species who, in their attempt to accelerate objects faster than light, obliterated a quarter of their own galaxy. _Death's spirit brushed against Iris' soul._ You, from the moment you were created alongside the first stars, have been destined to bring change.

_Iris was not entirely sure she could handle the irony. She was the subject of the prophecy, but it appeared that her existence was of unpredictability. She had a certain purpose in existence, it seemed - but that purpose was utterly and completely uncertain. If she had a head, it would be hurting right now._

But now, it's time for you to move on.

What?

You've already told me. You've died… and we have ended up here, in nonexistence. _Death gave her a gesture that felt like a sad, bitter smile_. _A myriad of emotions. Regret, pain, loneliness._ We are the two last existences. So long as we remain here, we too would eventually be swept into nothingness, whether it takes ten minutes or a hundred billion years.

And what will we do?

I will abuse the ability you have been given by the Powers that Be, to try and save you. With your ability to swim through 'time', you may be able to survive millions of times longer than I will. If, in a very rare scenario that a new universe births itself from the ashes of the Final Graveyard, then you would be able to escape.

But what about you?

I will dissolve.

No!

I must. You cannot control your own abilities - only I can. Once you're gone, you will be in no position to guide me.

Don't leave me. I don't want to be alone!

You won't. _Death soothed Iris, pulling her close in an embrace of souls, the most intimate gesture that might ever occur in the entire history of the universe_. You won't even realize anything is happening, child. 'Time' no longer exists anymore. _Death paused. They spent a moment in silence_. Did you feel that? That's how long eternity feels.

But…

Good luck. _Death hesitated._ I… I love you, sister. May you find solace in the new stars.

Don't…!

_But nothing more came out. At that instant, Death vanished into nothingness, while Iris herself, without knowing, wandered forever to nowhere and everywhere. Nothing happened. But everything also happened. When Iris came to, she saw something. The first sensation after an eternity of nothingness. _

_Iris took her chance. She pulled herself toward it, desperately, even as it seemed to fade away. No, it couldn't be. It wasn't leaving, God fucking damn it! In a place where 'space' and 'place' were two distant memories, there was no fucking way it could be resisting her!_

_At that moment, she grasped the edges of the object and catapulted towards it. A gate. A gate to a new universe! Death was right, Goddamn it. A new universe born from the eternal death of the old, and this was her ticket out of her nonexistence. _

_With a primal scream, one she could not hear nor make, she pulled herself through the Veil of Death_.

* * *

Iris gasped, sitting up in the bed. Beside her, a young man stirred.

"Iris?" He mumbled. "W's wrong?"

Iris didn't respond. Was that… was that a memory or a dream? Had she truly felt that? She had seen nothing, heard nothing, _been_ nothing, and yet it was so vivid that for a moment she truly questioned her existence. Had she truly met Death? If so, did the Deathly Hallows truly come from it? Was she truly the subject of a prophecy, then? The prophecy that whatever she did, would change the universe on a scale so large that the effects would be ongoing until heat death?

"Iris?" The young man seemed more concerned now.

"I…" Iris swallowed, but her mouth was dry. "A nightmare."

"You okay?"

Iris felt the awkward embrace settle around her shoulders. She tensed slightly but allowed it. "No. I'm not okay. That was… that was the worst nightmare I've ever had. And I've had some pretty sick nightmares."

"You said you came from a warzone," the young man said carefully.

"Yeah, I did. This… wasn't related to war at all. But still much, much worse." Iris held up her hands. They were cold and shaking violently. She barked a laugh. "I can't really remember what it was about, anymore. All I remember is… dread. Dread as I've never felt before. I'm not scared of dying, Ian." She turned to the young man who had concern etched all over his face - Iris'd had worse one-night stands. "I'm not scared of dying at all. But this… it was the sensation of becoming _nothing_. Of having not only your legacy but the legacy of everyone, everything else around you torn down to atoms and the atoms themselves being ripped apart until there's no proof that the universe ever existed, and you being right in the middle of it."

"I didn't need an existential crisis, Iris," Ian chuckled, though it held an undercurrent of nervousness.

"I really didn't either." Iris placed her shaking hands in her lap. "Can I tell you a rather fantastical story, Ian?"

"Go ahead," Ian shrugged.

"From ancient times, times more ancient than the Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids, as old as humanity itself and possibly even older - we just don't know - there was an object called the Veil of Death It's made of black volcanic stone, and undeciphered runes have been carved into it with craftsmanship that shouldn't have existed back then. And I know it definitely exists, I've seen it with my own two eyes and I've felt the stone arch with my fingertips," Iris said. "Scholars have studied it for centuries. All they know for certain, so far, is that it leads to a different place. They don't know where the destination is, because nothing they've ever sent in has ever come back. Some say it's a gateway to the world of the dead, because when people stand near it, they hear the voices of lost loved ones, beckoning them to join them on the other side."

Ian was completely still. "That sounds… interesting."

"You probably doubt me, but I know what I've seen. But the thing is, Ian, it's perfectly real, and it's a perfect mystery. Nobody has ever fallen through the Veil and returned."

"But has anything come out from the other side?"

Iris took a deep breath. "One person that I know of has come out of the other side. It was me."

Ian stared at her.

"About two and a half months ago, maybe - I don't know! I fell through the Veil, Ian, and the people that were studying it tried to capture me. I ran away. Ever since then, I've been mostly scavenging, because I can't get a job, because I literally don't have an identity. I was born in Britain, in a village called Godric's Hollow, and I lived here all my life. But I don't have an identity anymore, ever since I fell out. No passport, I don't show up on the voters' registry… because I dropped out of the Veil, somehow."

"Is this a prank?" Ian asked cautiously.

"Yeah, sure. I'm having an existential crisis because I thought I had a nightmare about what happened immediately before I got put in this godforsaken world, and it's all for a bloody fucking prank!" Iris roared, her voice getting progressively louder and cracked as she went on. "Fuck off, Ian, not everything is about you! Being an atheist doesn't make you special, you knobheaded twat!"

"Alright, calm down," Ian said angrily. "You're going to wake everyone, and you're also being quite rude about it. I apologize if I offended you, but-"

"Fuck off," Iris said with cold finality. "_Obliviate_."

Ian's eyes became glassy and unfocused. Iris nudged him back onto the bed. "I never existed, Ian," Iris said bitterly. "Which is ironic, because I technically existed forever… I think. Now go back to sleep and when you wake up, be disappointed that your one-night stand couldn't bear to be with you."

Ian dutifully went back to bed and began to sleep. Iris, with a flick of her fingers, gathered all her things, and she jumped out the window, avoiding being seen by the hotel staff. She slunk into the shadows and wondered where she should go now.

* * *

Montgomery watched the eight caskets being lowered to the ground. Draped over the coffins were Union Jacks. At the center of the Union Jack was a wand, with stylized wings on them that could have been read as a capital M. The Ministry of Magic had always been rather vain.

Nine men. Nine specially trained soldiers, defeated… no, _decimated_ by one person.

This one person… where the hell had they come from? Montgomery himself had surveyed the scene of his team's decimation, covered in a dozen muggle-repelling wards. It had not been the work of brute force; if it were, this entire neighborhood would have been razed to the ground. No, the enemy had skill and plenty of patience. The forensics announced that many of them had not had a chance to defend themselves, having been ambushed. That probably meant the enemy was skilled at assassination and reconnaissance.

The final member of the squadron had been spared - if one could call it that. They'd been placed in the Long-Term Patients ward of St. Mungos. Poor guy couldn't feel anything from the waist down - he'd gotten a cutting curse to the spine. He'd never be put back in the Unspeakables again, or even the Aurors. The Ministry didn't really have pensions, so he couldn't count on that. He'd have to get a job as a shopkeeper or a bureaucrat to make sure he didn't starve.

He'd gotten a lot of scorn from the other department heads after that. Like they could have done any better! The best damned team to exist in the entire Ministry of Magic, the best of the fucking Aurors, had been brutalized in a nine-on-one assault. The enemy shouldn't even have been expecting them for fuck's sake! The only people that could have done that were on the caliber of Grindelwald, Dumbledore, and You-Know-fucking-Who. Or even better!

"Your boys weren't enough, huh, Monty?"

Montgomery clenched his teeth. "What do you want, Gardner? Are you going to gloat, as if eight men didn't just die and one didn't get crippled?"

"I'm not gonna gloat. I'm just saying, _I told you so_." Sullivan Gardner lit a cigarette. "If you'd trained those soldiers as I told you to, they might still be alive."

"What you were proposing can't be considered _training_ by any stretch of the imagination," Montgomery snapped. "It's torture, brainwashing, mental conditioning. Turning humans into killing machines. You even proposed pushing them to make Horcruxes."

Gardner shrugged. "Men who aren't afraid of death fight the hardest."

"Men who aren't afraid of death are no longer men."

"Then the recent events have proved to you, finally, that you need a monster to fight a monster, eh?" Gardner leered. He exhaled the smoke into Montgomery's face. "Monty, you could have followed my advice, but you didn't, and now those eight _men_ are dead. They'll never see their family again, Monty, they'll never feel the pleasures of flesh or gold or alcohol. Do you think it was really worth your conscience?"

"The fact that a _monster _as you call it, killed those eight men, suggests we shouldn't be creating monsters in the first place," Montgomery said.

"You know James Bulstrode has a sister who's in Hogwarts right now?" Gardner said. "I wonder how she'd react."

"For the last bloody time, Sullivan," Montgomery whirled on the man and jabbed his finger in his face, his face pulled tight into an expression of barely contained fury. "I will _not_ allow you to use our Aurors or Special Agents as your playthings. I will not have them turned into glorified murderers. Do you understand me?"

"Whatever you say, boss," Gardner smirked infuriatingly. He turned around and walked away as Montgomery clenched and unclenched his fists. His knuckles were bone-white and he really felt he needed to sit down. He exhaled deeply, loosened his black tie, and went to sit down on a bench. He'd had to lie to the families present at the funeral. He couldn't bring himself to say that he was their superior.

Sullivan fucking Gardner.

Gardner was a special agent in his time, one of the members of the very squad that Montgomery had commandeered - until three days ago. Gardner was exceptionally _brutal_ \- there was no other description. He spoke about efficiency, yes, and he was indeed brutally efficient. But he valued fear. He even had a favorite Dark Lord, of all fucking things, and he made in-depth analyses on exactly why and how they were the best Dark Lord. He was the kind of creature that should've remained in a cave and not have been let out. The only reason he wasn't discharged was that he'd never failed once, and his protégés never had either, under his guidance.

Montgomery sighed, exiting the graveyard. The clouds, much like his thoughts, were dark, and possibly going to rain soon. Out of sight, he apparated back to the Ministry building. It was when he was heading to level two, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement headquarters, that he ended up sharing a lift with Madam Bones.

"Montgomery," Bones said politely.

"Bones," Montgomery grunted.

A brief silence filled with the faint tinkling of elevator music.

"Don't take it personally," Bones said finally. "That team should have been able to take down anything short of a wave of dementors. Nobody expected a Veil-crosser to be so powerful."

Montgomery snorted self-depreciatingly. "Are you willing to lend some of your best Aurors, then?"

"Not particularly," Bones admitted. "Though I probably should. If anything, the ones I give to you will be better prepared to die."

Montgomery barked in laughter. "Gardner wants a few new pet projects."

"Again? I thought he might have finally had enough when his latest apprentice blew himself up alongside two thousand others in a factory in Mexico," Bones said, her voice full of venom. "What does he plan to accomplish?"

"I don't know and I don't care," Montgomery pushed up his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the headache that had been present for the past three days. "I want to wake up three months ago. I want this to be all a bad dream."

"We both do," Bones said, with a measure of sympathy in her usually hard voice. "I'll try and find some good Aurors for this task. I know I can think of a few off the top of my head, like Alastor. I would also volunteer Kingsley, but I'm not sure if he'd be keen after his initial confrontation with the threat."

"He was one of the two Aurors that fought against Archangel in the Ministry, wasn't he?" Bones nodded. "Good thing he wasn't murdered."

"I'll try to convince him, and Nymphadora Tonks," Bones said, apparently deciding to herself. "They were spared by Archangel for whatever reason. Their presence might make the threat more cooperative."

"Take whatever I can get," Montgomery grumbled as they began walking down the corridor towards their respective offices.

"Please, Pierce. They're very capable Aurors of their own right." Bones sighed. "Not that it helps, apparently."

"When you find the Aurors you're looking for, send them to me and I'll debrief them. I'll see if I can dig up a few… unsavory connections to find people to fight Archangel." Montgomery smiled bitterly. "Thank you in advance, Amelia."

"You're welcome in advance, Pierce," Amelia Bones said with a slight, encouraging smile. "We'll manage it, you just watch."

"If only it were so easy," Montgomery muttered, stumbling into his office and crashing into his chair. It wasn't long until his insomnia of the past few days caught up to him, and he fell asleep on his desk.

* * *

"I've decided to revise our threat level of Archangel," Dumbledore said quietly.

That shut the Order up immediately.

"I implied before that it may be possible to approach Archangel on the suspicion that they may be friendly with the Order," Dumbledore said. "I no longer hold this opinion. From now on, nobody in the Order is to knowingly approach Archangel. They are, frankly, too unpredictable and I am not willing to risk the lives of anyone in this room."

An uncomfortable silence stretched in the group. Some, like Snape and Moody, had heard from their friends and knew exactly why Dumbledore seemed so worried. Others did not, as Lupin voiced soon enough, more to break the awkward silence than from any desire to find out what had happened.

"Why? What happened?"

"Three days ago, a special task force led by militant Unspeakables went on a capture and retrieve mission," Dumbledore said gravely. "Nine members were in the squad, each of which graduated the Auror Academy with outstanding scores. They were given further training and were considered to be the most skilled law enforcement agents available to the British Ministry of Magic. The nine soon found out that they were not enough, for eight of them were killed and the last turned into a paraplegic."

Molly gasped, clutching at her chest, while Remus, Sirius, and Arthur Weasley all expressed various levels of distress. Tonks herself did not feel particularly good with that new piece of information. She'd only met that woman three days ago. The conflict had occurred after Iris left her house, to go home - or more likely in her case, find somewhere to sleep.

"Miss Tonks, Kingsley, I heard that you two were to participate in the Archangel manhunt once more," Dumbledore said hesitantly. Tonks' heart dropped like a rock. "Madam Bones has recalled all Aurors from the manhunt due to how dangerous it is. Instead, she is gathering a specialized team consisting of Aurors, other Unspeakable agents, and mercenaries from both within and beyond our borders. She believes that you two may be better able to pacify the threat, after Archangel spared you in your first confrontation."

Tonks' heart was beating madly. She hadn't spoken about their meeting three days ago, not yet. They were rather difficult to bring up, anyway, especially after what happened to that squad of Unspeakables. Iris probably expected Tonks to vouch for her eventually - but it was getting more and more difficult to do just that the longer Iris simply remained in this country. Not that Tonks was inclined to vouch for her in the first place, anyway!

The thing was… underneath all the blood stained on her hands, Iris was a lost soul. She had a whole group of friends who no longer recognized her, she was lonely and miserable. Even if she did reveal herself to her friends, they would all regard her with suspicion and mistrust - _just like Tonks herself was doing right now_. It was a close race, the race between Tonks' fear and her guilt.

Plus, it wasn't entirely her fault that she was being chased by the government. She simply happened to be unlucky enough to fall out of the Veil - three days ago, Iris had been frustrated as to how she'd been forced through the interdimensional drapery. Her murders of Death Eaters were her own fault, yes - but it could be said it was merely a symptom of her misguided attempt to make the world a better place.

And now, whatever manhunt was going to continue would inevitably result in a fiery explosion with dozens dead and Iris continuing to delve into solitude, misery, and darkness.

"Amelia asked me to ask you both, if you were willing to join the hunt," Dumbledore said softly. "And I will not pretend that I wouldn't find you a useful source of information in the continued hunt for Archangel. However, this is entirely your choice, and you do not have to undertake this task if you do not wish to."

Kingsley and Tonks remained completely silent. Kingsley remained as still as a statue, while Tonks fidgeted. She… didn't want to abandon Iris, not really. She was a girl who Tonks knew for certain had led a terrible life. All her scars… Tonks couldn't imagine the pain she would have had to go through. Then again, though, Tonks was instinctively scared of her in every way.

"I'll join," Kingsley said quietly. That gave Tonks the courage to speak up.

"I can't join," Tonks said quietly.

Kingsley glanced at her, though there were no emotions on his face. Tonks turned slightly red as everyone stared at her. Dumbledore nodded slightly. "There is no shame in walking away from a losing battle. No offense to you, Kingsley, but I doubt this task force could truly bring down Archangel if they got into a fight. Like Voldemort would never allow himself to be captured alive, likewise will this Archangel struggle until the end."

"I understand," Kingsley replied softly. "But I must do something. I would be undeserving of an Auror if I didn't."

Tonks bit her lip. She knew that hadn't been intended at her, but she couldn't help feeling ashamed all the same. If there was any comfort to her, though, she'd be undertaking a much more dangerous job of her own volition.

The Order dispersed, and Tonks brushed past everyone else as soon as the meeting was over. They probably thought she was ashamed of herself. Well, let them think that, Tonks thought viciously as she apparated back into her own flat. She then picked up a pay-as-you-go mobile phone that she'd purchased three days ago. She called the only telephone number that she could clearly remember, as if it had been branded onto her mind.

"Hello?"

"Iris?" Tonks licked her lips and swallowed. "You need to come back over."


	8. Chapter 8

_The Stranger has already affected our timeline._

_What shall we do?_

_We did not expect this. Why did we not see this coming?_

_Because the Stranger is not our creation. The Stranger has existed before our realm was built. She does not follow the same laws as anything on our world._

_Can we not erase her?_

_No. She was not ours to create. Thus, she is not ours to destroy._

_She is eternal._

_Her soul is eternal._

_She will continue to destroy our timeline. She will destroy fate and prophecy. The greatest blasphemy. We must immobilize her._

_But she is eternal._

_Her soul is eternal. Her vessel is not. Damage the body and she will not be able to interfere as much._

_If we cease the operations of her vessel, she will be a wandering wraith for all time. _

_She will beg us for mercy._

_Shall we grant it?_

_No. She is a Stranger. Send the lesser gods. Send them to destroy the Stranger._

_Will the lesser gods be enough?_

_We shall see._

* * *

"Since I don't have an extra bedroom, you'll have to share with me," Tonks explained. "Although I suppose you already knew that."

Iris nodded with a goofy smile on her face that made Tonks want to punch it.

"It's a good thing that I have a queen-size bed," Tonks said, and then she glared at her guest. "If any part of your body crosses the halfway line, I'm cutting it off."

Iris pouted. "But you have such a nice butt."

"Tough. Now, I bought you some toiletries - your own toothbrush, towel, comb, razor, et cetera. Don't use my ones. You can use my menstrual hygiene products, but nothing that's designed to be re-used. Like my toothbrush. Understand?"

"Yes, Dora, I understand."

"Don't roll your eyes at me. You get to be a freeloader. I'm not even asking for rent, for Merlin's sake."

"You invited me to come here, Dora. Don't tell me you forgot already?"

"I invited you here because you're currently Undesirable No. 1 in Magical Britain," Tonks said, grinding her teeth. She was already regretting her decision to bring Iris over. "You could be a little more thankful."

"Undesirable No. 1," Iris sighed, and Tonks nodded. "Just like old times," she added wistfully.

"...what the hell does that mean?"

"This was back when Voldemort took over the Ministry," Iris shrugged. "What more did you expect?"

"Why were you Undesirable No. 1?" Tonks asked, confused. Iris hesitated, and Tonks realized. It all fucking clicked. "You're the Child of Prophecy."

Iris growled deep in her throat, surprising Tonks slightly. "And I made bloody sure that Voldemort died at my hand."

"...you're Iris Potter? The kid of James and Lily Potter?"

"So what if I am?"

"Nothing, just… is that why you're killing those Death Eaters?"

"Most of them, yes," Iris said flatly. Her tone seemed to get more and more emotionless the more she seemed to talk about herself. "I didn't kill the Malfoys, I'll have you know. I only faked their death after I made them flee to Australia."

"Really? Why?"

"...because Draco was a friend."

It was Tonks' turn to hesitate. "That little shit?"

"Said little shit lived in his father's shadow his entire life and didn't know anything more than what he was expected to know," Iris sighed. "I spoke to him. I think it was during my fourth year. He actually managed to be jealous of Krum because the Mudblood Granger just about blew away everyone there. His blood-purity garbage didn't stand a chance against the stiffy-inducing daydreams of a horny teenage boy."

Tonks snorted. "I can believe that, actually."

"Of course, he also tried to ask me on a date later in that year. I was surprised but accepted, on the condition that I choose the venue. He agreed, and he was shocked to find that I had dragged him to a filthy Muggle mall."

"What did you do?" Tonks asked, curious about her pureblood cousin's reaction.

"Well, I firstly convinced him that he was allowed to touch the peasants without gloves on, he wasn't going to get AIDS. Then I took him to an arcade, crushed him in Street Fighter, annoyed him by very badly singing Pinball Wizard while he played the pinball machine, took him to eat pizza, watched a movie, ate donuts, and I took him on a nighttime drive on a McLaren F1 that I copied from a guy in Milton Keyes."

"Copied?"

"The Gemino charm is so underrated it's not funny. You know I have an expensive car collection masquerading as a toy car collection with that, and the Shrinking Charm?" Iris fumbled in her pocket. "You mind if I smoke in here?"

"I would," Tonks said irritably, and Iris frowned as her empty hand retreated from her pocket.

"Ah, so you're a woman of finer tastes, are you?" Iris' grin quickly came back as she fumbled in her other pocket. "I'm sure I have something for you… heroin?"

"I'm not an addict," Tonks sighed.

"Surely you'd appreciate a drink, then?" Iris literally pushed her arm into the air and _plucked_ out a bottle of scotch.

"How in Merlin's shitstained briefs did you do that?"

"Dimension pocket. Basically a mokeskin pouch, the bottomless kind, except you weave it out of the air itself." Iris unstoppered the half-full bottle and took a swig. "Complex piece of magic, but useful as hell."

"That's… bullshit. Anyway. Look, I don't spend much time here, truth be told. I usually eat at the DMLE cafeteria before I go home, so I don't stock much food or whatever. I have instant noodles… uh, microwave lunches, canned foods… there's also some orange juice and apple juice in here."

"Jesus. How late do you work?"

"I work until about nine, usually. Then I'll eat at the cafeteria, or take home some of Molly's cooking now that she's living in Grimmauld Place."

Iris stared at her with sympathy. "You're a workaholic, aren't you?"

"I've been accused of that before, yes."

"Can you teach me to use the washing machine?"

"Sure," Tonks said, leading Iris into the bathroom. "Molly thinks this is some sort of dark magic," she snorted. "Anyway, so you open this compartment and…"

"And?"

"What in Merlin's name is that smell?" Tonks opened the washing machine and peered inside, quickly shutting it. "Oh, Merlin," she gagged. "Is that yours?"

"Can you teach me or not, arsehole?"

"Yeah, yeah. Usually you're meant to put in one spoonful of detergent but I think we'll make an exception here…" Tonks put two spoonfuls of powdered detergent into the compartment. "You twist this knob, select the temperature and time and all that, and just hit this button here. The one that says 'Start/Stop', if it wasn't obvious enough for you."

The washing machine began to hum and Tonks stepped away, waving her hand in front of her face and scrunching her nose. Iris rolled her eyes. "It's not that bad. I even cast deodorant charms all over it."

"Not that bad to you, maybe," Tonks muttered. "But others haven't burned out their nostrils through the power of their own stench."

"So mean, Dora!"

"You're going to have to reimburse me for the washing machine if this one breaks down from the sheer disgustingness of your clothes," Tonks said. "Anyway. Back on topic. You're one of the most wanted criminals in Magical Britain, and you have a bounty on your head - dead or alive, mind you - of five thousand galleons. The good thing out of all of this is that you've cast a Fidelius on your own identity so that literally nobody, except yours truly, will be able to connect you with the so-called Archangel."

"Right," Iris said.

"That being said, there's a kill order on whomever continues attacking Death Eaters if the attacks match the descriptions of your previous assaults. The Ministry has adopted a 'beg forgiveness rather than ask permission' policy. If you go out there again and kill people, they will not hesitate to kill you despite not even knowing who you are."

"Shit, they're taking it seriously, aren't they?" Iris smirked. "But I suppose this is what happens when you target respectable pureblood families."

Tonks resisted the urge to sigh, and the urge to kick her out of her flat. "Firstly, yes, they're taking this threat very seriously. You have a body count of nineteen as of now. Secondly… do you seriously not realize that you're doing wrong?"

"I do, vaguely," Iris shrugged. "But I can't be brought to care about it."

"You're an actual psychopath," Tonks breathed, and immediately cursed herself for it. Fortunately, but also disturbingly, Iris seemed not at all offended.

"I'm pretty sure I'm more of a sociopath than a psychopath, but I guess it fits me well enough," she shrugged. Tonks stared at her. "What? I got curious and I did some research on myself."

"Look, Iris," Tonks spoke jarringly. "What you're doing is vigilantism. Violent vigilantism, at that. It's… it's not right. We don't AK every criminal we see in the Auror corps so that they can stand up for themselves in a court of law, and we can collectively decide on what the appropriate punishment might be."

"Yeah, so that depending on whether they're pureblood or mixed-heritage, they can get off all charges with a bit of cash or be railroaded into a place that's described by the rest of the Magical World as a literal hell," Iris snorted. Yeah, okay, maybe that wasn't the best example to go with, Tonks reflected.

"I don't see the problem, Dora," Iris said frankly. "I admit, I might have something of a personal vendetta against Death Eaters. Which is why I've refrained myself from AK'ing common street thugs on sight, as you've put it. And while I won't claim to be doing God's work, you can't deny that the Death Eaters overall have a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of Magical Britain. It's like rooting out weeds in your garden, you know? Because weeds negatively affect the growth of tomatoes and other crops and shit."

Tonks did understand. She also understood just how _wrong_ it sounded. So logical, so calculated. Tonks tuned out her new roommate as Iris began spouting arguments regarding the pureblood preferences of economic protectionism and how murdering them all would improve the market prices and stimulate growth for the rest of the population.

"Iris, just… stop," Tonks held up a hand, and Iris slowly closed her mouth, before raising a single eyebrow in response. "Just don't kill anyone anymore, okay? It's excessive. Your power and skill, you should be able to easily subdue someone rather than kill them." She paused. "...you just like killing them, don't you?"

"Eh, if I'm feeling particularly artistic, I might," Iris shrugged. "Usually it's just easier for me. Also sends a message, you know?"

"What's your body count?" Tonks blurted, fuelled by morbid curiosity.

"Uh, I honestly don't know. Pretty certain I'm into four digits by now. Most disagreements in the wasteland was settled with one side getting murdered by the other, and I tended to disagree with a lot of people."

"I never would've guessed," Tonks muttered, and Iris laughed. "I've got a preposition for you."

"What's that?"

"I've spoken to Dumbledore," Tonks said slowly, watching for any sign of her emotions. There were none except for her raising an eyebrow again, a signal for her to elaborate. "He's worried about Harry. Harry Potter, I mean. He's getting an awful lot of cursed mail and that sort of thing, because of the Ministry's slander. While he hasn't gotten into physical confrontations yet, the Headmaster thinks it's a matter of time before he does. Also, Hogsmeade visits for Harry have been classified dangerous. The Headmaster thinks it may be wise for Harry to have a competent, but discreet bodyguard to keep him safe."

"...okay? Is this just a ploy to make me pay you rent?"

Despite herself, Tonks laughed. "That would be nice, but I doubt you would anyway. Regardless, Aurors are being watched constantly by the Ministry, and the rest of the Order…"

"Are incompetent?" Iris guessed.

"I was going to say, they also have real jobs, but that too," Tonks lowered her voice to a whisper. "Please don't tell anyone that. I can't lose Molly's cooking." Iris nodded and mimed zipping her lips. "And a few others like Sirius are hardly discreet, so… you."

"I'm flattered."

"Don't be. Your job is going to consist of trailing a bunch of teenagers around while they make out and talk obnoxiously about Quidditch teams."

"Yeah," Iris said with a thoughtful look. "Yeah, I can imagine that. As long as I get to see action once in a while, I should be fine."

"The finer details, you'll have to go over with Dumbledore," Tonks said. "Stuff like you being inside Hogwarts. As much as he'd like you on his side in the coming war, I don't think he's comfortable with the idea of you being in close proximity to the students."

"Why, cause I'm a psycho?"

"Among other things, yes."

"Fair enough."

"So do you think you'd be willing to meet with Dumbledore? Hammer out the details of becoming Harry's personal bodyguard?"

"I guess. It's better than sitting around not doing anything, because _someone's_ uncomfortable with murdering others in cold blood," Iris rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "By the way, if _Harry_ gets to order _me_ around, then the whole thing is off the table."

"I think that's fair," Tonks smirked. "I bet he'd order you to sneak into Ginny's dorm and take pictures of her while she sleeps or something. Have you seen the way he looks at her when he thinks nobody is looking?"

Iris laughed, before settling a seductive gaze on Tonks. "I'm more a fan of brunettes, myself," she purred, sliding up to Tonks. Tonks flushed red, her hair cycling between different colors as she panicked. She'd dealt with flirts before, but why was this so difficult? She coughed.

"Anyway," she continued, Iris' hand uncomfortably hot on her thigh. "What do you think? Dumbledore wants to meet you as soon as possible."

"Yeah, sure, I can meet him whenever," Iris shrugged. "Until then, I'll just be sleeping on your bed and eating out of your admittedly empty pantry. If you come grocery shopping with me I can cook for you."

"Really?" Tonks perked up. "That's great! I'll tell Old Man Dumbles we can meet him in a couple of hours, after we go shopping."

Iris smiled. Despite coming from a self-admitted psychopath, it was a nice smile and one that seemed genuine.

* * *

Albus examined the young woman in front of him. She was perhaps in her early- or mid-20s, about average height, five foot and five or six inches. She had a muscular frame, with only the barest hints of fat on her body to imply femininity; her face, however, was regal in appearance, with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw. She sat smoothly down on the chair opposite him. She had grace and athleticism in spades.

"Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore," Iris said pleasantly.

"Good evening, Iris," Albus returned with a genial smile. "How are you?"

"Fine, thank you," she said with a slightly wistful smile. "And yourself?"

"I'm well, thank you, though a bit overworked," Albus chuckled. "I understand you have heard the basics of my preposition from Tonks, so I'll summarize. I want to hire you as protection for dear Harry, and I thought you would be the best option for discretion, effectiveness, and for relatability - you were supposedly the Child of Prophecy in your own world."

"Yes," Iris said. "And now we negotiate terms."

Albus examined her. She sat politely but casually in her chair, leaning back and her hands settled in her lap; posture was fully relaxed. Not feeling threatened, confident. She had a convincing but nonetheless fake smile on her face. Her startlingly green eyes examined everything in the room, not just Albus himself, although she was subtle about doing so. Perhaps she was slightly bored?

"Now that I take a look at you, I don't think we can pass you off for a student," Albus said. "You're a bit mature-looking for that, and I doubt you'd be interested in taking classes all over again." Iris simply sat there with the same fake smile, neither agreeing nor disagreeing; not giving Albus any information to use as leverage. "I could potentially hire you as a teacher's assistant during teaching hours, and give you housing within the school that way. Or, we could rid ourselves of subtlety and openly call you Harry's bodyguard."

"The last option sounds easiest to me," Iris said. "No need to make it any more difficult than we need to."

"I suppose that's true," Albus agreed. "Well, then, we can just tell people that you're Harry's bodyguard. Now we can negotiate hours and wages."

"Who's paying?" Iris asked.

"During school hours, the school will be paying," Albus said. "During non-school hours, Harry has agreed to pay using his trust fund."

"Harry's paying?" Iris raised an eyebrow. "He didn't argue against that?"

"He argued for that, actually," Albus chuckled. "At least, after we finally convinced him to get some protection."

"I bet he hated that," Iris laughed. "Teenagers never like receiving help from meddling adults. Even if they actually are meddling over his head."

"Yes, I suppose that's true," Albus smiled. "I have taken the liberty of doing some research; professional, high-level Magical Escorts have a going rate of about two galleons, five sickles per hour. While you are powerful, you are not a professional bodyguard, rather an amateur one; the school is willing to offer you an hourly wage of one galleon even per hour."

"Sure. As if I'd sell myself that cheaply. I want one galleon and twenty sickles."

Thankfully, that was still below the budget of two galleons per hour, although Albus still needed to haggle to keep up the illusion of generosity. "One galleon ten sickles?"

"One galleon thirteen. Take it or leave it."

"Deal," Albus nodded and held out his hand to shake; Iris reached across the table and shook it. "Harry has said he's willing to pay the same amount as we are. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Nah. Harry-poo can hire my services for free."

Albus did a double take. "I beg your pardon?"

"I offer family discounts based on the coefficient of relatedness. And since he _could_ technically be me except a boy, he might be 100% related to me, thus receiving a 100% discount."

Albus stared at the girl, who smirked slightly at him. He denied himself the pleasure of palming his face. "Fine," Albus huffed. "Harry is already in school, and would like to hire your services as soon as possible. When will you be available?"

"Tomorrow, probably noon," Iris shrugged. "I'll make Dora take me clothes shopping."

"Now that you have an actual wage, you can start paying me back," Tonks snarked from behind.

"Add it to the tab. Which I'll forget about," Iris said dismissively. "Thanks for the employment opportunity, boss. I won't let you down! Pinky promise."

As Iris and Tonks apparated back to Tonks' house, Albus sighed and waved at the door, cancelling the magical lock and anti-eavesdropping charms. Due to the Fidelius, he couldn't talk to the Order about her being the Child of Prophecy, but they knew she was Archangel and was eager to see if she were onboard.

"I think it could've gone worse," Albus said even as Sirius and Remus walked in. "She's a terror, that one."

"Did she threaten you?" Remus narrowed his eyes. Bless his soul, always willing to stick up for the old man even if there was nothing he could do.

"No," Albus sighed. "She firstly overcharged the school for her services, then gave Harry a 100% discount."

Someone snorted. It was Severus, who had just walked in. Albus raised a bushy eyebrow and Severus smirked in return. "She seems to enjoy winding you up almost as much as I do, Headmaster."

"It seems to be the case," Albus sighed again. Why did everyone like to tease him so? "Regardless, she has said she will be available around tomorrow noon. I will get back to the school and arrange her accomodations."

"Did she look competent?" Sirius asked.

"She looked like Lily Potter," Albus said with a sad smile. None of them would make the real connection between Lily and Iris, not unless Iris told them herself. "If I remember anything of Lily at her best moments, it was her competence."

"That reassures me more than I'd thought," Remus murmured. Severus remained silent.

"Nymphadora-" despite himself, Albus scanned the room for the person in question to avoid her wrath, "-has reported, however, that Iris is a high-functioning sociopath. I think that was obvious to us all, but it also means she is capable of developing fondness for someone, even if only after a long period of interaction. Try to interact with her often, if you would. She is undeniably a deadly asset for us to have in the war against Voldemort." They flinched again. Why did they do that?

"Understood." Severus, always direct, always competent, flooed back to Hogwarts using the fireplace in the sitting room. The two other gentlemen retreated to their respective rooms. Albus stood. He himself needn't exit in an undignified manner like the Floo - he had a phoenix, and damn if he wasn't going to take advantage of that. Albus called Fawkes, and teleported with the bird back into his office.

* * *

"I can't believe you're actually getting a bodyguard," Ron said bluntly.

"Ron!" Hermione hissed. "You know what Harry's life is like. He's been getting death threats left, right and center. Is it such a stretch of imagination to think that someone might try to make good on that threat?"

Harry ignored the bickering that would eventually descend into arguing. Ron was dismissive of the threats around him, which was somewhat infuriating, but far less infurating than Hermione's stance on the subject, which was to coddle him like Mrs. Weasley. He was capable of going to the loo without getting ambushed, thank you very much. Regardless, his bodyguard would be arriving today. She'd given him a 100% discount for some reason, and Dumbledore looked like he'd sucked on a lime (because he loves lemons) when he'd said that. Just for that, Harry already liked his bodyguard.

"...right, Harry?"

"What?" Harry turned to Hermione. "Sorry, I was lost in my thoughts."

"Better safe than sorry, and you're apparently not even paying for their services," Hermione repeated.

"I guess," Harry shrugged. He resisted the urge to say, _as long as they don't cover me in bubble wrap like you do_.

Today was Monday. The bodyguard was arriving at noon, which was perfect because neither Harry nor Ron had any classes after lunchtime. Until then, they would have charms, and the hated DADA class.

"It will also keep you safe from that serial killer that's been going around," Hermione said with a mixture of relief and smugness. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Whoever that is has been killing Death Eaters. Harry's the farthest from a Death Eater as you can get."

"Can we not talk about this?" Harry asked irritably. "It's all you've been talking about this morning, _and_ last night."

"Talk about what?" Ginny asked, sliding down next to Hermione and opposite her brother.

"Harry's getting a bodyguard assigned to him in light of recent events," Hermione explained, going completely contrary to Harry's suggestion from literally five seconds before.

"Huh." Ginny blinked. "I wonder what they're like. Do you think he's going to be handsome? Like Kingsley?"

"What makes you think it's going to be a bloke?" Ron asked.

"It would be silly to assign a female guard to a male client," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Then the guard won't be able to follow the client to certain places, and there's also the potential for scandal. Also, what do magical bodyguards even look like?"

"Black robes?" Ron suggested. "Sunglasses?"

"The sunglasses are universal?" Hermione blinked.

"Yeah, because bodyguards are usually assigned to the kind of people that attract journalists and cameramen," Ginny said.

Harry went to class. Umbridge seemed rather put out that Harry wasn't acting out today. Whatever. She'd have her time to gloat during detention - again. His mind was on the bodyguard. Dumbledore had actually been quite pushy about getting him to accept the bodyguard - he'd said that this particular person, while not a professional bodyguard, was extremely capable and 'exclusive', whatever that meant. It was clear that Dumbledore didn't want him to hire a bodyguard, Dumbledore wanted him to hire _this_ bodyguard, and wasn't below trying to guilt-trip him by bringing the safety of his friends into it.

As lunch began, Harry had only had time to eat a sandwich for himself before McGonagall cleared her throat behind him. "Mr. Potter," she said, as he turned to face her. "Headmaster Dumbledore has notified me that your bodyguard has arrived with Miss Tonks. He would like you to meet them in his office, with the password being 'Sherbet Lemon'. Again."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said politely, getting up off his stool. Ron and Hermione, and Ginny followed. Harry eyed them, then turned to the Professor, who only shrugged. They took this to be permission and followed Harry towards the Headmaster's office.

"Why are you guys so interested?" Harry asked. "You were going to meet them in ten minutes, anyway."

"We need to make sure if they're up to our standards or not," Ginny said imperiously, and Harry snorted.

"I guess you do," Harry agreed.

They approached the gargoyle, spoke the password that apparently Dumbledore never bothered to change, and went up the spiral staircase. And as he'd been told, there was Dumbledore, and Tonks, and a redheaded young… woman? Harry blinked. Hermione's argument about female bodyguards from before had made quite a lot of sense, but here she was.

"Hello," the redhead said. "I'm your new bodyguard. You have my blessing to start as many fights as you can so I can finish all of them."

"Iris, please," Dumbledore sighed. "Harry, Miss Granger, Mister and Miss Weasley, meet Iris - or Polaris, she doesn't mind - who will be acting as Harry's new security detail."

"Nice to meet you," Harry said politely and shook her hand. She grinned. Her grip was firm, her hands rough.

"Why is he getting a girl bodyguard?" Ginny asked, no, demanded. Hermione for some reason was smirking at Ginny's reaction, and both Tonks and Iris looked amused as well. Wait… was Ginny jealous? Of what? Her looks, maybe? Iris wasn't unattractive at all… "What if she, I don't know, does something inappropriate to him?"

"Geez, is she calling me a pedophile?" Iris muttered to Tonks, who snickered.

"If you do anything to Harry, I'll kill you myself," Ginny growled.

"Oh, I'm terrified," Polaris deadpanned as Ginny's face started approaching the color of her hair. Ron was grinning foolishly, and Harry himself could not resist snorting in amusement. "I'm being assaulted by a girl who hasn't graduated from writing her crush's name in her notebooks and drawing hearts around them."

"How did you kn- shut up!"

Harry couldn't help it; he doubled over in wheezing laughter as Ginny shot him a betrayed look. Hermione was also turning red behind the hands she was using to cover her giggles. Tonks ruffled poor Ginny's hair, though her grin was wide and unrestrained. Dumbledore - well, his eyes twinkled, and that would have to do because nobody could see his mouth behind his beard.

"I'm glad you're all getting along so well," Dumbledore said. "I did have some doubts, no matter how small. Now, off you all go! Healthy minds need healthy diets."

"Bye, Tonks!" Hermione called as Tonks waved. Before they left, Iris planted a kiss on Tonks' cheek, turning the metamorphmagus a bright red without the use of her unique abilities. Harry briefly wondered what that was about.

"So," Harry said. "You're my bodyguard."

"Yeah, dude. Not what you were expecting?" Harry nodded. "That's fair. I've never done bodyguard duties, so I wasn't really expecting it either. Well, how hard can it be?"

"So you got rules?"

"Rules?"

"You know. Bodyguards are usually like, 'don't do this' or 'don't go here without my supervision' or whatever."

"Oh, right. I haven't thought of those yet. Don't look at me like that! I told you I'm new to this game." Iris pouted. Oh, okay, wow… she was really cute when she pouted. And Ginny apparently realized that too, because she mumbled out some excuse and stormed off. Hermione hesitated, and told Ron and Harry that she was going to make sure Ginny was alright.

"So if you have to guard Harry, that means you have to sleep in the boys' dorm, right?" Ron asked, with perhaps a little too much hopeful enthusiasm.

Iris raised an eyebrow. "Nice try, but I have my own accommodations."

Iris seemed fairly dismissive of Ron. Ron definitely noticed, and got upset - Harry sighed. He wasn't ready to deal with that right now. Ron could very jealous sometimes, and the fact that he was quiet was simply the calm behind the storm. He'd eventually demand Harry for answers he didn't have, asking why Iris didn't like him as much as he liked Harry. It was a pain to deal with, especially when Ron fell in love with just about every female he saw.

Harry glanced at Iris. She was admittedly attractive. She didn't have the same, ahem, assets that Tonks did, but her body was good shape and she knew it. She was lean, but had muscle, and her legs were rather shapely, possibly from whatever workout she did. Harry silently thanked Iris for wearing those skintight dragon-leather pants. She also had a nice face, too, with pretty eyes. The same color as his own, in fact.

Curious, but nothing strange.

Harry found himself continuing to enjoy Iris' company. She seemed a little guarded regarding information about herself, but otherwise she was fairly talkative, and Harry knew from her words that she was intelligent, perceptive, and had a decent sense of humor. When Umbridge demanded to know who she was, Iris told her in no uncertain terms to fuck off, and that netted Iris several dozen bonus points in his book.

All his good mood dissipated when it was time for Umbridge's detention. It was a pain having to explain to his bodyguard that he'd gotten detention on practically the first day (and several days after that). He'd tried to justify himself, but Iris stopped him.

She and Harry sat on the latter's bed, side by side. Iris patted his shoulder. "Nah. I believe you. I think you have a right to stand up to yourself, even if I wouldn't recommend it in this case because she's obviously baiting you. What has she got you doing for detention?"

Apparently Harry's answer wasn't satsifactory, because she insisted she join Harry in detention. Thus, when Harry made the dreaded knock on Umbridge's door and heard the sickly sweet 'come in!', Iris stepped in beside him. The fat woman's piggy little eyes glared at her.

"What are you doing here? This is detention for Mister Potter," Umbridge said.

"I am here to do my job, not interfere in his detention," Iris said coldly. Harry felt the ambient temperature of the room drop below zero. "And my job is to protect my client from physical harm and criminal acts."

Umbridge nodded slowly, her face draining of color. When Harry wrote his lines that night, the ink was black.

* * *

Wow, an update. The first in three months! I don't know when the next update will show, though, because this story's been pushed to the side for now.

Also, I have no idea what the economics of the magical world is like. I used the Weasleys' thousand-galleon draw and their subsequent vacation to estimate what the cost of goods and services in Magical Britain were like - so one thousand galleons = international, month-long trip for seven people, with a hundred or so leftover to buy Percy new stuff. I've concluded that one galleon is close to ten US dollars. I'm also assuming that the average income of a Magical British citizen is between a quarter to half of their non-magical counterparts, considering that the magical world hasn't industrialized, but the purchasing power of the galleon makes up for the lack of income.


End file.
